


For Forever

by Beguile



Series: It Takes a Village [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Typical Violence, Crisis of Faith, DarkMatt, Emotional Hurt, Explosions, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, Near Death by Suicide, Ninjas - Freeform, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Season 3 AU, Suicidal Thoughts, transfusions - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2020-05-07 12:16:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 66,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19209262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beguile/pseuds/Beguile
Summary: The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city.Sequel toIt Takes a Village. AU.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn’t planning on this. I had ideas. A file titled “Every Time Frank Could Have Shown Up In Season 3.” Conversations with friends. But I wasn’t going to put this into words until Tumblr decided to show me a mash-up of gifs depicting Frank saving Matt.
> 
> And then it just sort of…clicked. Well, no, it didn’t. There were two versions of this story in the works for a while before dear friends helped clarify which version was going to get posted. I spent an additional forty-eight hours agonizing over my decision. But ultimately, posting this felt like the right thing to do. 
> 
> If you haven’t read _It Takes a Village_ , here are the major plot points: 
> 
> \- Matt breaks his leg saving Frank from a collapsing ceiling. Frank repays him by taking him home and nursing him back to health.  
> \- Matt and Frank fight during this time. A lot. But then they gain a respect (and deep, irrevocable affection) for each other.  
> \- Elektra shows up. She works for the Hand. She and Frank fight over Matt.  
> \- Fight scenes.  
> \- Elektra breaks from the Hand and leaves to kill their remaining members in part to save Matt from being arrested.  
> \- Frank lets himself be arrested at the end to save Matt from also being arrested.  
> \- Matt rebuilds his friendships with Karen and Foggy, particularly Foggy. 
> 
> There is more, but I feel like that’s a good primer for the uninitiated. And if all you’re looking for is shameless Matt-whump, well, have no fear! Because you’ll definitely find that. Looks like there's going to be some Frank-whump in here too. 
> 
> Enjoy.

* * *

 

               The news reaches Frank: Midland Circle collapsed, ninjas suspected, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen presumed dead. “Haven’t found a body,” CO Booth whispers through the bars, “But they’re pretty sure he isn’t walking out from under a collapsed building.”

               Frank’s not, but he keeps that to himself. Matter of time, he tells himself. Like everything about Red, it was only a matter of time. And knowing Red, it’s only a matter of time before he shows back up. Doesn’t stop Frank’s head from getting quiet though. He listens to Booth’s footsteps retreat down the hall, then he closes himself off to everything in the cell block, thoughts fixing on what he’s going to do when the doors open.  

               Cell block opens. COs eye him, but Frank’s been good these past couple months. Made deaths look accidental. Avoided fights where guards can see. Played the upstanding inmate so well they don’t mobilize when he joins Wilson Fisk in the weight room. There are a few inmates hovering, obviously loyal. Frank plays it cool. He feigns heading to a bench, even has one guy come up prepared to spot, then in one swift movement, Frank weaves back, grabs a weight, and smashes it into Fisk’s knee. The Fat Man goes down. Frank swings again, cracking Fisk’s hip, shoulder, and chest before a combination of inmates and COs put him on the ground.

               He comes to in the infirmary. He counts a couple of busted ribs, two broken fingers, and a sprained wrist through concussion fog. CO Booth is at the door; CO Watson flanks him, panties in a bunch because he wants Frank in the hole ASAP. Doc mutters something about how they probably should’ve posted extra guards around the one guy in gen pop they know for sure Frank wants to kill.

               Watson makes some other asshole comment that Frank ignores. He’s busy blinking the gray out of his vision, trying to confirm Fisk’s location. Couple of COs are hovering in his periphery. Medics circle a bed, the hulking body of the Kingpin just visible within their cluster. Blood and bruises stand out amidst the white coats.

               “He’s not going anywhere,” Doc says. He holds up Frank’s injured hand, pressing a tablet into Frank’s palm as he works, a tablet he bandages into place while tending to Frank’s wrist.

               “Thanks, Doc,” Frank mutters.

* * *

 

               Watson arranges another beating for Frank when he gets to the hole, enough for him to spend the first hour in solitary on the floor, dazed, soaking in a pool of his own blood. He gives his head time to clear, lets the darkness sharpen before his eyes. He’s beaten and bloody and concussed, but his thinking is the clearest it’s been in months. The path is so clear, so perfectly clear.

               He reaches his injured hand to his mouth, scraping under the bandage with his tongue. He swallows the pill left by the Doc with a chaser of blood from his busted lips and nose.  

               Doc doesn’t like him, but the Doc doesn’t like Fisk more. They’ve had a deal in place since Frank arrived, a ready-made escape route that starts with the breaking of Wilson Fisk and ends with the death of Frank Castle.

               He tries to prepare himself, but nothing prepares him for the shock of paralysis. The cold rush through his blood. The last remaining heartbeats before his brain goes as dark as his cell.

* * *

               Frank wakes up in the body bag mid-transport. Lies still till they stop, lets himself be unloaded, but the second the doors slam behind them, he busts out of the bag. He takes out the two orderlies rolling him to the oven, treats the other employees to sleeper holds, and only when he’s rendered everyone unconscious does the full weight of what he’s done hit him. His muscles give out. He drops to his knees. His blood gets sluggish and oozy in his veins, tugging like a blanket through his skull. Adrenaline doesn’t do shit except push him toward cardiac arrest. Doc said he needed to take it easy, but Frank doesn’t have time to take it easy. He’s got minutes before the guys on the floor start waking up. A few minutes after that before they get every cop down here, throw his ass straight back in solitary. The Devil and him both underground.

               He gets to his feet, and his next few steps nearly put him back on the floor, but he manages to get himself to the breakroom. Bunch of lockers on the back wall: Frank busts into them, grabs himself some clean clothes and a set of car keys, then he strips, staggers, and redresses so that by the time he’s out the back, he’s looking halfway respectable. Certainly well enough that no one’s going to stop him on the drive through the city.

               Hell’s Kitchen can’t come fast enough. Frank pulls over, parks illegally. Ditches the keys in the passenger seat, and hops the hell out, double-timing it down the alley. He orients himself – no easy feat. Shit, his head’s spinning. His hands are shaking. His heart’s bashing against his rib cage. Takes everything Frank has left to get his ass off the street. Once he does find some place to hide, he drops into a corner and lets his eyes shut, the details of the plan coming together even as the grasp on his senses falls away.

* * *

                He doesn’t dream. Head’s a dark place, oddly silent. Got his crosshairs fixed and nothing gets in the way. When he wakes, Frank tends to his injuries out of necessity. He steals some better clothes and takes a walk.

               Air’s thick around the site; Frank’s sinuses burn. He tries to catch a glimpse of the sorry excuse for rescue teams that ain’t gonna find a damn thing but eventually gives up. He heads to the library, temples pounding, sinuses on fire. The archives let him crash-course city planning. Sewers run through every fucking inch of the city. Underground tunnels that’ll be flushing shit out of the system. Frank grabs a cup of coffee on the way to the Hudson where he spends the afternoon checking sewage, waiting for the devil to show up.  

               The sight of the empty beach disappoints him. No search crews, no Red, no nothing. Frank walks around well into nighttime, scanning his flashlight over the rocks and the litter, watching animals churn and shift past the light. Waiting for Red to show up the way Red always does: out of nowhere with some bullshit quip, trouble nipping at his heels.

               God damn it, where is he? They’re almost on day three with no sign of the Devil, and there’s no way the kid is going to pass up the chance to be a Christ metaphor.

               Pain lances through Frank’s head so suddenly his knees almost give out. He reaches for his face and knocks his busted nose and _fuck_ , why’s he doing this? Why is he fucking doing this? Busting out of prison and wandering around in the dark. Not bothering with reason or rationale even though it’s stupid as hell, pulling through debris and sniffing sewer water and scouring garbage. Devil’s dead. Or he’s not dead: he’s pulled himself out already and plunked himself on a nearby rooftop to get a good view of the show Frank’s making in his honour. Little shit.

               Frank stops, drops to his haunches, counts to ten. The pain in his head gives way to pain in his chest. His blood still running like sludge. His heart’s working overtime. Stomach’s a mess, too. One more pass, he decides. One more and then he’ll call it a night, come back in the morning with fresh eyes.

               Water rushes through the drainpipes ahead of him. Debris scatters on the beach. Frank listens to the slick, wet slap of runoff against the sand. He trails his flashlight along, one pipe after another, almost missing the sudden flash of red in the beam.

               He reaches for the sidearm he doesn’t have even as his feet carry him forward, his body knowing faster than his brain what he’s going to find. Past the next drain, Red’s dragging himself across the sand, the only sounds he’s making a series of weak groans.  

               Frank shuts off his flashlight. He rushes forward, taking the kid by the shoulders. Rolling Red’s a bad idea: he’s not moving properly, the kid. Legs are stiff and arms are folded up to his chest. Need to check him over before picking him up.

               Red’s not much of a conversationalist. He drops back into the sand, his eyes still open, his jaw unhinged, the glazed look of a corpse written over his face. His skin’s blue under the moonlight, mottled with blood and bruising. Frank cups a hand in front of his mouth, relieved to feel a breath against the backs of his fingers. He gives Red a quick pat-down, committing the swelling in the lower back and hip to memory. Then Frank grabs Red by the shoulder and goes to lift him.

               The kid snaps awake in his hands. “Red,” Frank says, waiting for a reaction that never comes. Red’s moving but not stirring. Just hangs there in Frank’s hands, every inch of him sinking into the ground.

               Frank holds tight. “Stay with me, Red. Come on.” He adjusts his grip, lifting Red up, putting him on his knees in the sand and hoping that doesn’t strain the back injury too much. Still, Red does nothing. He weathers the movement like a puppet on Frank’s strings, his eyes fixed skyward. Mouth agape.

               Claps to the face do nothing; Frank’s playing with a corpse. “No, no, not yet, Red, you hear me? Not your time yet. Not yet.”

               The kid blinks in response. Best he can do, it seems, under the circumstances. Moves not a muscle aside for that. Frank’s hushed litany earns that slow drop of Red’s eyelids, then he’s back to staring in the empty shell of the Devil’s mutilated body. Only thing left of the kid is his body, and he doesn’t seem to be even aware of that.

               His chapped lips twitch. Frank leans closer, his heart in his throat from the thought this might be it. Red’s about to draw his last breath. Instead, what Frank hears is, “Sain-“ The kid sinks out of himself for a second, and Frank’s heart skips a beat, but then he’s back again, “Saint Matthew’s. Father Lantom.”

               Red’s eyes shut after that. Job done.

               Frank doesn’t waste any more time. He wrestles the Devil over one shoulder, ignoring the protests from his own chest for how Red doesn’t make a sound: not a moan or a groan or a sigh, nothing. He flops lifelessly against Frank’s back on the way off the beach. He drops into he backseat of the car Frank busts into, dead weight, nothing but an empty shell of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

               Frank gets into the driver’s seat. He hotwires the car and has it in drive before his brain catches up to him, asks what the hell is going on. Jesus, he doesn’t know. The noise is back inside his skull – gunfire and explosions and buildings coming down. Invasion of New York level shit. Red’s barely breathing back there. Should be in a hospital. Could be in the morgue.

               He slams a hand against the wheel, knocking himself out of his fugue. “You asking for last rites, Red? That what you want?”

               No answer. Frank tears his gaze out of the rear-view mirror for the road, pulling his foot off the brake as he does. “This isn’t the end.” And he says it again, ‘cuz he means it. “This isn’t the end. You stay with me, ya hear?”  
  
               But he drives the kid to St. Matthew’s anyways.

 

* * *

 

Happy reading!

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the show, Matt requests Clinton Church, but I called it St. Matthew’s in _Village_ , so it’s called St. Matthew’s here for continuity.


	2. Church

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city.  
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> The response to the first chapter of this fic was overwhelming. Thank you. I have been so excited these past couple of days. I have missed writing this kind of relationship between them. 
> 
> Readers, dear Readers, please, enjoy.

* * *

 

“Oh, the things that you do in the name of what you love.  
You were doomed but just enough."  
  
~Fall Out Boy, “Church”  

 

* * *

               Frank slams a fist on the rectory door. Father answers quick enough. Look on his face goes from angry to horrified back to angry.

               “Matt Murdock,” is all Frank says to get that expression back to horrified.

               Lantom grabs a coat and pair of shoes before following Frank to the car. He’s silent as Frank opens the back door, and he stays that way as Red’s bashed-up face comes into view on the backseat.

               “He was asking for you,” Frank says, stepping out of the way. The old man gets in close, tucking a hand under Red’s jaw to check for a pulse. “Think he wants last rites.”

               “Do you think he needs them?”

               Frank doesn’t like that question. “I don’t think he can give ‘em even if he did.”  
  
               Lantom withdraws his hand. He reaches for the door, waiting for Frank to step out of the way before closing it. The blood on his palms stands out, even in the dark, but Lantom doesn’t bother wiping it off. Old man’s used to getting his hands dirty. “Other side of the church there’s an orphanage, St. Agnes. Park in the back. I’ll let you in, help you get him upstairs.”

               “What’s upstairs?” Frank asks, already headed for the driver’s seat.  
  
               “Infirmary.” Lantom closes the car door gently over Red’s head. “We’ll see to him there.”  
  
               Reason asserts itself dimly from the recesses of Frank’s mind. He might be running through the motions, but he isn’t an idiot. “Gonna need a lot more than an orphanage infirmary.”  
  
               The old man doesn’t shrug, doesn’t smirk, doesn’t do a damn thing but level a stare that bores into Frank. “Guess it’s a good thing you’re here.” And then, as Frank’s ducking in the car to get the hell away, “Again.”           

               Frank slams his door as hard as he can. Lantom gets the door closed behind. He gets the engine running, even shifts into drive, puts the car in motion, his thoughts in a void. He’s got his marching orders, so he’s marching, but that doesn’t quite seem good enough with the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen kicking up a silent fuss in the backseat and the old Priest saying smartass shit. What the hell does he need a reason to do what he does? Made himself perfectly fucking clear the last time he and the kid were together as to the why-s and how-s between them.   

* * *

 

               Father’s waiting at an open door when Frank gets the car around. He gets to the back of the car and already has a hand under Red’s shoulder before Frank’s out of the driver’s seat. Together, they get the kid out of the car and flopped back over Frank’s shoulder.

               Lantom leads the way through St. Agnes, guiding them by a flashlight beam and muscle memory up two sets of stairs and a long hallway of closed doors. They eventually arrive in a small room of three beds dimly lit from the streetlamps below. The sight gives Frank zero pause. He puts the kid on the middle bed, his knees buckling slightly as he rises back to standing from the sudden absence of weight on his shoulder.  

               “Watch your eyes,” Lantom warns before the lights come on. Frank forces himself to stare through it, but his eyes are on fire. His skull throbs. Pain blots out his senses, and when he reaches for it, he hits his God damn broken nose again.

               “Shit,” Frank says, the backs of his knees clattering against the bed behind him.    
  
               “Language,” Lantom reminds him.

               “Yeah, yeah.” The room gradually comes back into focus, just in time for Frank to notice a black-clad figure storming up the hall. She rounds the corner into the infirmary, so pissed the brightness of the room doesn’t faze her. Nothing does. The sight of Red only serves to piss her off more.

               “What’s going on here?”  
  
               She’s not really asking. Her tone makes that abundantly clear. But Lantom runs with it, replying, “We have an injured man.”  
  
               “You have two,” the woman notes, giving Frank a scathing once-over. “Why?”

               Father tries to get a handle on the conversation, but the woman’s focus has already shifted. “Who are you?” she demands.

               Frank ignores her for Red. Kid’s face looks worse in the light, bloodier. More distended, more broken. Even his precious suit’s coming apart at the seams. He hangs from Frank’s hands when lifted upright, his head heavy against Frank’s neck.

               “He’s here to –“

               “Stop.”

               Frank assumes she’s talking to Lantom until he’s got her at the bedside, looming over him in her black dressing gown. He doesn’t stop, instead side-eyeing her as he tugs at the zipper on the Devil’s stupid costume. The suit is pulled tight across Red’s crushed body, swelling pulling against the fabric.

               “Daredevil’s one of ours, Maggie,” Lantom says, joining them.

               “He should be in a hospital.”  
  
               “He’s a vigilante. If he goes to a hospital, the police will arrest him.”  
  
               Maggie walks away from the bed. Thank Christ. Frank manages to get the zipper popped, but he hasn’t done much to loose Red from inside it before he notices Maggie’s grabs the phone from its cradle on the wall.

               It’s the only sight strong enough to get Frank to put the kid back on the bed. He comes around, sidesteps the priest, puts himself on a collision course with Maggie. “Can’t let you do that,” he says.

               Maggie stands her ground, putting the phone to her ear. She glares daggers at Frank the whole time he comes towards her. “This is Sister Maggie Grace at St. Agnes Orphanage-“  
  
               Frank isn’t sure what he’s about to do, only that he’s about to do it, right up until Lantom puts a hand on his chest and says, “It’s Matthew. Jack Murdock’s son.”

               Well, hell, if that doesn’t change her tune. Maggie’s still pissed off, sure, but she tells the dispatcher on the other line that she’s made a mistake and hangs up. The phone goes back to the cradle. Frank stands down, returning to the bedside, to the kid. So swelled up it’ll be a miracle if they get him out of the suit. Scissors won’t do it; scalpel won’t work neither. “Need some wire cutters. Bolt cutters, if you got ‘em,” he says.  
  
               “Paul,” Maggie says. Lantom heads for the door. “Wake Sister Elizabeth on your way. Have her do a bed check, make sure no one’s heard you arrive.”

               Father’s departure seems to put the whole room in motion. Frank sways on his feet to compensate, only to realize it’s not the room, it’s him. His throbbing head and wrist and fingers. He stiffens his legs to hold himself upright, raising his eyes to Maggie just in case she wants to make some kind of smart comment.

               She doesn’t. She waits just long enough to see that he’s righted himself before leaving the room. Frank takes advantage of her absence to wipe the sweat out of his eyes, to slow down his breathing, get his heart from trying to leap out of his chest. The sight of Red sobers him up quick. Kid’s right eye is swollen shut, but the left one is open a crack, the pupil fixed.

               Frank puts a finger to Red’s wrist, takes his pulse one more time to be sure. “You hang in there, Red, come on,” he mutters. “This isn’t the end.”  
  
               Maggie comes back into the room; Frank drops the kid’s wrist, rising back to his full height just in time for her to pass him a bowl of water and a hand towel. “Get yourself cleaned up,” she says, putting another bowl on the small table by the head of the kid’s bed. “He’s got enough problems without picking up something from you.”

               Frank nods – less in thanks than in acknowledgement of her advice – and lowers himself onto the bed behind him. Change in altitude does him good. The warm water on his face helps clear up that dizziness some.

               “So are you like him?” Maggie asks. She’s got a rag hovering by Red’s face, trying to find a place it’s safe to touch him. Eventually she settles on the left side, by his cheek, and gently washes away at the blood and grime tracking over his skin. The motion pushes Red’s one eye shut.

               Pressure mounts inside Frank’s chest. He tries to think of an answer for Maggie’s question to distract himself, but it’s hard when Red’s face is caving to the slight pressure of the cloth. When he’s lying there, ready for the grave in that stupid armour of his.

               She tries again: “Not much of a costume you’re wearing, if you are.”  
  
               “I don’t wear a costume,” Frank says.

               “That’d be a first.” She brushes the cloth over Red’s chin, trying to loose the blood from his facial hair. “Do you have a name?”

               “Less you know the better,” Frank says.

               Maggie lets out a laugh. “I agree. But you’re here now. What do I call you? Bloody Man? The Devil’s Sidekick?”

               “Look, lady-“  
  
               “Sister.” Maggie’s glare is delivered by implication only. “You come to my door in the middle of the night. Take refuge in my infirmary.” She doesn’t stop what she’s doing. But hell, her voice softens, and that serves to make her sound more dangerous. “I don’t expect you’re going to leave when Father returns with the wire and bolt cutters. So what am I supposed to call you?”  

               She brings the rag back to the bowl of water and wrings it out. Frank doesn’t meet her stare on purpose. He fixes his gaze on the floor, a big stain of red and black in his periphery from the kid and Mother-freaking-Superior watching over him.  

               “Call me Frank,” he says.

               “Frank.”  
  
               “Yeah.” He catches her, head tilting back, eyes pointing skyward, a prayer for strength. Not sure if that means she knows him or she thinks he’s lying. “I’m not here for trouble. Kid said he wanted the church, I brought him to the church. Father’s the one that told me to come here.”

               “Listening to a dying man and a Priest…” Maggie trails off.

               “You listened too,” Frank reminds her. “Jack Murdock’s son.”

               Maggie hardens at that. “Yeah, well,” she turns all her attention back to Matt. Frank’s content to leave her there, but she comes back with, “How did you find him?”

               “I looked.”

               “Must have been one hell of a search.”

               “Yeah, well.” Frank reaches for his scalp but thinks better of scrubbing at it. There’s a cut there from his final beatings at Super Max.

               “Matthew must be very important to you.”  
  
               Frank wrings out his own cloth, tosses it into the bowl. The water’s getting close to the same colour as Red’s suit. “Should be more important to Search and Rescue. Got whole teams of guys digging up Midtown but all it took was one asshole on a beach with a flashlight to find him.”

               There’s the ghost of an expression on her face: a smirk, probably. Little flash of victory that goes as quickly as it comes. Maggie swipes the cloth through Red’s hair, searching for wounds as she works. Frank lets her, his eyes drawn instead to that damn armour.

               “Did you find the woman?”

               A chill runs through Frank; he shakes it off, coming back to himself. “What woman?”

               “The woman he was with: reports said that two people were confirmed to have been at the bottom of Midland Circle. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and a woman.”

               Frank tries to remember the prison, what Booth said to him. Ninjas and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. But shit, that was early reports, and it was enough to kick Frank’s ass into gear. He thought he knew everything he needed to know, thought that Red getting crushed by another building was inevitable, and it fucking is, but of course there’s a woman. Hell, with the ninjas involved, with _Red_ , there’s only one woman it could be.

               “No,” Frank replies just as Lantom re-enters the room, “But I intend to.”   

* * *

 

Happy reading!


	3. Orpheus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city. 
> 
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> It’s strange – I started writing this fic as a follow-up to _Village_ because I wanted to revisit the relationship that had developed between Frank and Matt, but the proximity to canon gave me pause this chapter. I don’t want this fic to be a retelling of season 3. Advice came from the strangest of places. Anybody watch Lindsey Ellis? Well, her video on _Game of Thrones_ is how I got through this chapter, lol.
> 
> In the process of finding my feet again, I did change the song for chapter one (the original track I had picked out was tonally inconsistent with the chapter, even if the lyrics fit). The process of putting together the playlist for this fic is challenging in a way that I don't remember _Village_ being. Maybe the first chapters were a nightmare of scouring through music collections, but it seems harder this time around. It also seems like _Village_ was a whole slew of break-up tracks, while this is nothing but love songs. 
> 
> Readers, dear Readers, I hope you’re enjoying yourselves. Thank you so much for the support. Cheers!

* * *

 

“Don't stop trying to find me here amidst the chaos  
Though I know it's blinding, there's a way out  
…No fear, don't you turn like Orpheus, just stay here  
Hold me in the dark”

~Sara Bareilles, “Orpheus”

* * *

                Bolt cutters give Frank’s hands something to do besides punching the walls. Fucking costume doesn’t stand a chance. It’s Midland Circle. It’s the God damn city. It’s Wilson Fisk and Elektra Natchios and the Blacksmith and all those other sons of bitches that brought him and Red here.

               The fibres split around the blades, revealing swaths of bruising up and down Red’s arms. Frank makes the final cut at Red’s neck and pulls the costume open. “What’s the damage?” Maggie asks, still working on the sleeve.

               “Shoulders are still in place. Collarbone isn’t broken neither,” Frank says. “Blood on his chest. He’s cut open. Left side.”

               “We have to get this suit off him.”  
  
               Frank couldn’t agree more. God damn costume. He heads for Red’s ankle, stripping off the boot, the sock. He hooks the bolt cutters under the cuff of the armour and slams them shut, and for a brief moment, familiarity grips him. His brain goes off with a flashbulb feeling that he’s been here before.

               His hands work without his thinking about it. They get the bolt cutters up to Red’s thigh then pause for a break. Maggie asks him what he’s doing, and Frank’s only response it to flip open that armour on the leg. He wraps a hand around Red’s left calf, his fingers searching, searching, finally settling on a horizontal strip of scar tissue on the back of the limb. His thumb lays itself into the vertical surgical scar on the side.

               “What?” Maggie asks again.

               Frank withdraws. He picks up the bolt cutters from where he’s lain them next to Red. Chills crawl up the back of his neck. He twists, scrubbing a hand to get rid of them. In his periphery, he catches sight of Lantom, arms-crossed in silent judgment from the doorway.

               “Leg’s not broken,” Frank says.

               He gets back to cutting, up the thigh, across the chest, intercepting with the incision Maggie’s made. “Get him-“ Frank starts to say, but she’s got it, tearing the suit away from Red’s skin. Blood bursts out of the incisions they’ve made as if they’ve cut off the kid’s own skin.

               Maggie leaves the room. “We need bandages,” she tells Lantom on her way past.

               Frank takes over, bundling the blanket in his hand and pressing it into Red’s side. The laceration is long, ugly. Born of blunt force trauma. “We need stitches,” he tells Maggie. Then, to himself, “Shit, he needs more than stitches.”

               “I already suggested taking him to a hospital,” Maggie notes.

               “Do you know a doctor?” Lantom asks.

               “I’ll find one,” Frank replies.

               Maggie sweeps back into the room, placing her armload of supplies on the foot of the bed: bandages and gauze, ice packs. The only thing she holds onto is a narrow metal pan and, unbelievably, a threaded needle. “Get the rest of his suit off.”  
  
               Frank holds out a hand for the needle. “Give it here.”

               “Move.”

               “You know what you’re doing with that?”  
  
               “Plenty of practice around here.”

               “Plenty of practice on him, when he was a boy,” Lantom adds.

               Frank doesn’t like this – any of it – but he is making faster work of the suit than she is, so he moves out of the way. Sister sits her ass down on the side of the bed and gets working. Her first few stitches look fine enough that Frank can get back to cutting. He goes to the opposite ankle this time and starts up towards Red’s chest.

               He feels the swelling grip the blade at Red’s hip. The skin balloons wherever the fabric gives way. “Shit.”

               “What?” Lantom asks.

               “Hip might be broken,” Frank replies.

               Maggie doesn’t even look at the injury. “It’s a sprain.”

               “How the hell do you know?” Frank demands.

               “It doesn’t matter what I know. It matters what we can treat. We can’t do anything for a broken hip. But a sprain, that we can work with.” She tosses her head in the direction of the cold packs she’s left at the end of the bed. “Treat it like a sprain. Maybe that’s all it is.”

               Frank tears through the rest of the costume with that in mind. Treat it like a sprain, treat it like a sprain. Fucking building crushes the kid, and he’s supposed to pretend that it’s only a sprain. He tosses the bolt cutters onto the next bed. He peels open the remaining flaps of the suit. Maggie pauses in her suturing, summoning Lantom over with a glance, and though Frank is looking to chew them both out for something, they’re both so fucking dependable, both doing exactly what needs to be done. Lantom lifts Red and holds him, Maggie puts pressure on the wound, and Frank drags the remnants of the suit out from under the kid’s limp body. He tosses the costume onto the floor and goes back to do more, but Lantom and Maggie already have it covered. Red’s returned to the bed. Stitches are closing up his side. Ice packs are resting on his hip, under his back.

               A shake builds inside Frank’s leg. He steps back, trying to force it out with weight, with tension, and that works for a second or two, but very quickly the spins come back to him. His heart punches against his sternum with every beat. Frank puts a hand over it, willing himself to slow down, get a grip on himself. Kid’s getting stabilized, but they’ll need supplies to keep him that way. Elektra’s out there too: underground or not, alive or dead. Doesn’t sound like Maggie’s keen on boarders in the orphanage who aren’t Jack Murdock’s kid, so he needs to find a base and find it fast, get back to doing what he does best.

               He watches the last of the stitches go in, watches as Lantom gets the kid lifted again so Maggie can wind his chest up with bandages. Red’s head falls back and hangs there. Lantom catches it, sure, but the sight stays with Frank. That vacancy in Red’s expression, the bloody shell of him. Shit, he wasn’t wearing his helmet when the building came down. No telling what the hell’s happened to his head. No telling what’s left of Matt Murdock or the Devil or anyone else in there.

               Priorities shuffle around in Frank’s head. Supplies first, but then it’s her. It’s all her. Red’s God damn zombie ex-. Underground or not, alive or dead, Frank is hunting her ass down, and he doesn’t care how much of the city he has to take apart in order to do it.

               Maggie and Lantom get Red lying back down. They pop another cold pack on the left side of his face, over his swollen eye, and then they retreat, leaving him, pale and bloody and seemingly held together by bandages. Frank doesn’t dare look the image head-on. He’s got other shit to deal with, so much so that he doesn’t notice Maggie standing next to him wearing clean gloves, a new suture pack in her hands, until she’s reaching for his busted nose.

               Frank sidesteps around her. “I have to go.” He finally hazards a glance at Red. “He’ll need fluids, anti-inflammatories, pain meds…”

               “I’m not a doctor,” Maggie says, “And this isn’t a hospital.

               “All the more reason to have them.”

               “I’m already harbouring a fugitive. I won’t be party to larceny.”

               “You treated him when he was a kid, yeah?” Frank asks. “How much of a pain in the ass was he then? Because he is one now. A big one.”

               “He isn’t much of anything right now.”  
  
               “Give him time!” Frank says, a little more forcefully than he means. So much so that his vision grays out at the edges. His hand flies up to his scalp and finds that wound, the long one, tacky with coagulation and white hot. “He’s gonna come back, start pushing that hip, his back, his ribs, his head. Bed’s not going to hold him; this building ain’t gonna hold him.”

               Maggie’s lips purse even tighter, and she wants to say it. Frank double-dog dares her to say it to his face. But she doesn’t. She settles her expression into a stack of flat, resigned lines. “Still Matthew Murdock, then.”  
  
               “Yeah,” Frank says, his eyes flitting to the form on the bed. “Still Murdock.”

               She heaves a sigh, exhausted with the thought. “At least let me stitch that wound on your head.”

               “It’s stopped bleeding.”

               “Your nose could use some attention too,” Maggie adds.  
  
               Frank’s turn to sigh. “I’m fine.”  
  
               “Are your fingers broken?”  
  
               “You said you weren’t a doctor.”  
  
               “Several times. Why start listening to me now?”

               The old man’s no help. He stands over by the far door, hands in the pockets of his jacket, his shoulders up in an almost imperceptible shrug. Frank tries to look away, but his eyes go back to Red’s banged-up legs, the glossy sheen of inflammation grating against Frank’s retinas. “Fine.” He sits down on the bed.

               Maggie grabs his nose; Frank yells. A flick of her wrist later and the break sets, blotting out his vision with white heat as fresh blood looses itself from his sinuses and drains into his lap.

               Frank catches the flow in his hand. “Jesus-“  
  
               ‘Language, Frank,” she says.

               “CHRIST,” he adds, louder this time. A wad of tissues appear, seemingly from nowhere. Maggie holds onto them long enough for him to take them before she circles around to the cut on his head. “This how you deal with the kids, Sister?”  
  
               “The unruly ones, yes,” she replies. Her fingers probe the wound before the needle asserts itself. Frank holds himself steady in his seat, pressing his nose harder into his hand as a clutch for balance. “Matt Murdock, certainly.”

               Frank rolls his eyes. Yeah, why is he not surprised.

               Maggie tugs at the thread a few times, less in an effort to close the wound, it seems, than to test Frank’s nerves. “You seem to know a lot about tending to Matthew. How did that happen?”  
  
               “This isn’t the first time he’s had a building fall on him,” Frank says. The stupid leg, the one Frank thought would never heal, now the one limb on the kid’s body Frank isn’t worried about. “He should be dead. Should be dead a hundred times over.”  
  
               “A miracle he survived.”  
  
               “Nah.” Frank makes the mistake of shaking his head. He hears Maggie’s sharp sigh, can imagine her so clearly casting a look skyward for the strength to deal with him. “Don’t go turning this into an act of God, Sister. Don’t you neither, Father.”

               “I hope you realize the irony in what you’re telling us not to do,” Lantom says.

               “You know who we’re talking about. You both do. Don’t try and tell me it was God keeping his heart beating, dragging his ass out from under that collapsed building. This wasn’t some miracle. This was the kid. The God damn Devil.” Maggie tugs her next stitch tight. Frank glares at her. “Would you stop?”  
  
               “Enough with the blasphemy.”

               “Ain’t blasphemy: it’s the truth. God wasn’t what got the kid out. If anything, God’s what brought that building down.”  
  
               Maggie stabs the needle into his scalp hard, and it’s the best Frank’s felt all night, feeling her wrath and knowing there’s not a damn thing she can do about it.

               “You don’t think he had help at all?” Lantom asks. “Reports say there was a woman with him when the building went down.”  
  
               “There wasn’t anybody else,” Frank says, “Not tonight.”

               “Are you sure about that?”

               The beach feels like a lifetime ago already, but, “Yeah, I’m sure. Kid came crawling out of the cistern by himself.”

               “Would she have shown herself?” Maggie asks. Her ministrations have gotten gentler since Lantom interceded, for which Frank is grateful. He’s got a growing number of stars in his eyes.

               “She wouldn’t’ve just let him go,” he says, “Least of all with me.”

               “Maybe she wasn’t able to stop you.”  
  
               Frank goes to shake his head again, but he stops himself. “No, she’s like the kid. It’ll take more than a collapsed building to put her down. If she was there, I would’ve known about it.” Right? He didn’t hear a damn thing on that beach except for the kid snaking his way through the sand. He couldn’t hear a damn thing more than that. He only had ears for the kid. “I would have known about it.”

               “Could she have already escaped?” Lantom asks.

               “Not without him,” Frank says. “She wouldn’t leave him.”

               The silence of the room is striking. Frank’s ears ring, his heartbeat pounding inside his skull from the force of his voice, from the sudden, overwhelming thought that _everybody always leaves Matthew_.

               Maggie snips the thread on his scalp, releasing him, and he can’t get out of the room fast enough.

               Lantom exits out of the far door. “Frank.”  
  
               “I’m going.” But Frank realizes it’s the wrong direction. The darkness of the hallway swirls around him, a perfect cushion for his aching head. He turns back towards the light, to the shadowy figures of Maggie in the doorway of the infirmary, to Lantom further ahead, each one blocking his exits.

               “I’ll be back,” Frank says. He needs to get stuff for the kid: saline, meds, dressings. A doctor. The last one’s lying dead on Red’s living room floor.

               He stops, the strength in his legs fading. His blood running cold and hot in his veins, arms shaking at his sides. Doc’s not dead; well, she is, but she’s been dead a while. Closest they’ve got to a Doc now is a nun doing her best to look disappointed as Frank tries to get himself back in gear.

               His heart won’t take it. Any more adrenaline and he’ll go into arrest, and he has no doubt Sister will bring every ambulance to haul his vigilante-ass away to Metro General while the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen convalesces in her care.

               “You a coffee-drinker, Frank?”

               The question doesn’t make sense for so many reasons, and Frank lets the priest know it. “What’d you say?”  
  
               “The church has this latte machine.”  
  
               Maggie lets out a scoff. God, but she has heard about this latte machine. She goes back into the room with Murdock muttering under her breath.

               “No time for a latte, Father,” Frank says, trying his feet at walking again. He comes to a halt just shy of the old man, when his legs almost give out.  

               “Jesus,“ Frank says, his head spinning.

               “Blasphemy,” Maggie reminds him.

               He needs to get the fuck out of here. He half-drags himself on the wall, passing Lantom, and ends up with a priest at his heels as he heads down the stairs.

               “I know what you’re capable of, Frank. But driving? Robbing a hospital?”  
  
               “Don’t have a choice,” Frank says. He makes it down a flight of stairs without tripping and lets the inertia carry him down the next one. “We both know this isn’t over. I said I don’t have time? It’s him. Red. _Murdock._ He’s the one who doesn’t have time.”  
  
               “Maggie can manage him for a couple of hours.”  
  
               “Jesus, what the hell is the matter with you? Both of you! You’re acting like he fell and scraped his knee.”  
  
               “You brought him here,” Lantom notes.  
  
               “Because he told me to!” Frank snaps. “St. Matthew’s. Father Lantom. He wanted to be at the church, so I brought him to the church!” The stairwell is at once sweltering and freezing. Frank can’t quite seem to catch his breath. He puts his voice low to conserve his strength. “I’m grateful for what you’ve done tonight, Father, but that doesn’t mean I am going to stand by and watch you two try to pray him better. It’s no miracle that he’s made it this far, and it’s not gonna be a miracle he makes it further.”

                “I’m not disagreeing with you.”  
  
               “Then I’m going.” He takes the stairs two at a time, but Lantom isn’t following anymore. The old man’s standing there even as Frank charges through the door and back out the way he came.

               The car is waiting. Frank fumbles at the handle and collapses behind the wheel. He puts the key in the ignition, gets the engine going as fast if not faster than his heart. There’s a patter of gray around his vision that he’s trying to ignore. Pain and heaviness that he can’t seem to get back. He puts the car in drive and circles around the empty lot, his eyes catching the light on the orphanage’s third floor. Maggie’s silhouette stands at the window, watching him from her place at Red’s bedside.

               He puts a foot on the brake. The ground in front of him churns. Damn it, he doesn’t have time for this, doesn’t have time to take a break. Supply run comes first. Stabilizing the kid comes first. Completing the mission, that’s first.

               Frank slams his foot on the gas and drives off. 

* * *

 

Happy Reading!


	4. Familiar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> Well, it has begun – I thought I would get a point in this chapter that never came, and instead cut the chapter shorter in order to give the next development room to breathe. 
> 
> So far I have kept to a weekly update schedule, but there will be a delay with the next chapter because I am traveling this week. I thank you in advance for your patience!
> 
> Readers, Dear Readers, you’re wonderful. Hope it’s nice where you are! Enjoy!

* * *

 

“It’s a danger.  
Every shade of us you fade down to keep  
them in the dark on who we are  
(Oh, what you do to me)  
This love is gonna be the death of me.”

~Agnes Obel, “Familiar”

* * *

              Daylight hits Frank hard. His face is on fire. Head’s a mess of noise and light. Chest is in pain, wrist is in pain, everything is in pain, and there Father goes, pushing at him, making everything worse.

               He sits up, infirmary swimming into focus around him. White walls, wooden floors, Red. Fucking kid lying out on the next bed over, injuries on full display in the morning light. He’s wearing sweats now, and there’s an IV plugged into his arm, vials on the table, but he looks the same kind of dead he did last night. Maybe a little worse now that the swelling’s had a chance to build.

               “What time is it?” Frank asks.

               “Little after 7.”

               Frank doesn’t know what time he got back. Barely remembers coming back. Definitely doesn’t remember passing out. Won’t Sister Maggie be thrilled. Already has one convalescent, and Frank’s gone and made it two.

               Father hands him a cup of coffee. Frank takes it, holding it between his hands. The mangled one has been redressed: new splints for the fingers, good support for his wrist. “Sister Maggie couldn’t move you, so she tended to your wounds in what I assume was her version of retaliation.”

               “Brutal,” Frank deadpans.

               “Feel guilty?”  
  
               “No.”  
  
               “Give it time.”

               The smell of coffee overwhelms Frank’s irritation. He didn’t mean to stay. Shit to do out there, places to be. Kid’s not going anywhere quick, and if the Sister’s as good as she seems to be, switching out bags of saline and administering injections ain’t gonna be a problem. Still, Frank’s wrist seethes under the bandages, his whole body aches. His heart aches. He lets himself take root, sipping at the coffee.

               He makes a face, almost spits it out. Father doesn’t react, merely settles himself in the chair on the far side of Red’s bed. “Not a decaf drinker.”

               “’m a coffee drinker. Decaf isn’t coffee.”

               “Figured a man who spent the past twenty-four hours the way you did should probably stick to decaf.”

               “Been through worse,” Frank says, not in the mood.

               Lantom concedes, letting him have the quiet, thank Christ. When he comes back it’s with, “News reports are saying another prisoner remains in critical condition.” Frank doesn’t give the old man anything, not until Lantom relays his suspicions. “Wilson Fisk?”

               Frank nods. Can’t help himself: it’s good news. Critical condition means Wilson isn’t going anywhere. Also, the affirmation makes the old man quiet again, leaving Frank alone with his thoughts and the sight of Red.

               At least for a little while.

               “Critical condition,” Lantom muses, “Is that what they’re calling ‘dead’ nowadays?”

               Frank forces himself to take another sip of decaf. It goes down easier than Lantom’s prodding. Red’s presence doesn’t help matters neither. Could be listening, the kid. Could be lingering there in subspace, smug as ever, hearing how Wilson Fisk is still alive.

               That he doesn’t look it barely registers for Frank. Give it time. Kid’s gonna come back. Better enjoy it now, the silence and the stillness, before Red starts in with his moral bullshit all over again. Get Mother Superior and Father Lantom to back him up in the debate.

               The old man’s opening his mouth to speak again; Frank beats him to the punch. “You disappointed, huh? Wish I’d finished the job?” _So do I_. He wraps a hand around the side of his head, stitches scratching against his palm, his scalp stinging. Eventually gives up on the action to hunker down over his knees, square his shoulders, brace himself for the priest’s next blow. “I did what I had to do. Guards and inmates got the jump on me; threw me into the hole. Kid wasn’t gonna get found. And if he did, the city was gonna ship him off to Super Max the second they could.”

               “It’s important to you that Matthew stay out of prison.”

               Frank finishes the coffee. He puts the mug on the table amidst the vials. “Important to you too. To Sister. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here.”  
  
               “I’m not judging.”  
  
               “Then what are you doing? What are you getting at?” Frank waits but not very long. “You do what you do, Father. I do what I do.”  
  
               Lantom barely bristles at the tone. “Wilson Fisk in critical condition is not what you do.” When Frank objects: “Going to prison is not what you do.”  
  
               Frank stares the old man down: “What do you think I did in prison? You think I was sitting in a cell thinking about putting Wilson Fisk in critical condition? News doesn’t know everything, Father.”

               “No,” Lantom says, “It doesn’t.” But, shit, he sure as hell does, and he’s got the look about him to prove it. Can’t say any of it without breaking his vows, of course, but that isn’t going to stop him from leading the conversation places Frank doesn’t want to go. He’s gonna keep asking his God damn questions and every answer Frank gives will be found wanting and Red is gonna be there for all of it. Kid’s never going to let him forget it neither, not after he wakes up.

               If he wakes up.

               Christ. _If_. The fucking _if_ wasn’t really there last night, and now it’s rattling around Frank’s skull like a game of pinball.

               “Maggie’s prepared to keep him here until he’s able,” Lantom says. “He’s in good hands. Nobody would think to look for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen here.”  
  
               “What about Murdock?” Frank asks. “People are going to be looking for him.”

               “Nobody’s come so far.”  
  
               “They don’t know where to look.”  
  
               “Or they don’t think looking will do any good.”  
  
               Frank isn’t sure which of those makes more sense: with Karen it’s definitely the former, but Nelson could go either way. Doesn’t present any immediate problems though, not if they’re as invested in keeping Red out of prison as Maggie and Father seem to be.

               Road to hell is paved with good intentions, though. Get Karen creeping around asking questions, the weight of the paper behind her, or Nelson banging at the door with his fancy law firm, they got problems.

               “You keep ‘em in the dark, they come here,” Frank says.

               Lantom nods, sighing. “At least until Matthew wakes up.”

               At that, Frank rises. His coat hangs from a hook on the wall. He gets it on, testing the mobility of his shoulders, his chest. Hurts but he’ll live. He casts one last look at Red on his way out the door. As if on cue, Red’s hand twitches.

               Frank stops. He waits so long that it must be a trick of the light, but then it happens again. The fingers twitch then relax, twitch then relax, like Red’s coming around.

               Lantom sees it too. He takes hold of Red’s other hand. “Matthew,” he says.

               Frank puts his hand on Red’s wrist, getting a read on the pulse. Heartbeat’s picking up. The tendons get taut, muscles activate. “Come on,” Frank urges. “Come on, Red. Come on…”    
  
               “Matthew, can you hear us?”  
  
               Red’s left eyelid twitches, his eyes darting around in his skull. Frank tightens his grip, gives a little tug, anything to break Red through his shell. The motion looses a breath from Red’s throat, what could be a groan if Red had voice to speak of. His tongue darts against the back of his lips, clacking inside his mouth.

               “Red? Red!” Frank tries another tug, stopping only when Lantom’s hand hits his shoulder. The old man leans over Matthew’s mouth, listening hard to what could be those last rites Frank keeps expecting to happen.

               Lantom eases back into his seat without saying a word though. He pats Red’s hand, reassuring him, and slowly, Red sinks back down into the deep.

               “What is it?” Frank demands.

               “Elektra,” Lantom says. “He was saying ‘Elektra.’ Asking for her.”  
  
               Frank nods, releasing Red’s wrist as he retreats onto the bed. His thoughts streamline away from Red, from that hope that he’s coming around, from that feeling that he might not, from the knowledge that _he’s sharper than this_. Sharp enough to know who’s in the room and who’s not. Frank gets rid of all that. He gets back to what needs doing. Elektra was there when Midland Circle went down. No way she died when the kid survived.

               “Are you going to find her?” Lantom asks.

               “Yes.”  
  
               “What happens when you do?”

               Frank doesn’t answer. Truthfully, he can’t say, can’t put that shit into words. Whatever happens between him and Elektra will happen, not get talked about or analyzed or cross-examined.  

               Lantom sighs into the silence between them. He doesn’t need to be told. “She’s survived being stabbed by ninjas and having a building fall on her. I can’t imagine what more you could do.”  
  
               “She brought him into this,” Frank says.

               “Maybe,” Lantom allows, “But I think we both know Matthew better than that.”  
  
               God damn it, they do. Frank shakes his head in dismay. “He survived, she survived. I found him; I’ll find her. Chances are-” he reaches for his head, then remembers the stitches and stops himself. “Chances are she’ll find him.”

               “And the children?” Lantom asks. “The Sisters? What about them?”  
  
               Frank shakes his head. “No, she wouldn’t. Not with…” he feels that phantom thrum of Red’s pulse against his fingers and tries to put his head back to Elektra. “Not with him.”

               Father sighs heavily, the weight of Matthew Murdock finally registering, it seems. Frank can’t blame the old man: kid doesn’t look like much, especially now, but he’s got the world on his shoulders and all of hell inside him and the worst of people gunning for him. Takes a hell of a lot to carry the Devil.

               “I’ll be around,” Frank says.   

               The old man scoffs. “That supposed to reassure me?”

               “I ain’t gonna let anything happen to the kids, the Sisters-“  
  
               “Him,” Lantom adds.

               The word knocks the air out of Frank’s chest. They’ve been here before, making deals for Red, and though it’s easier now, that only makes it more disappointing for Frank. What the hell is he doing here? Living in Red’s world of hopes and prayers and fucking Santa Claus nearly killed him once, and he’s giving it all a chance to do it again.

               “Yeah,” Frank says, “Him.” Whatever the hell that means.

               Lantom leans back in his chair. “My original terms and conditions still stand.”  
  
               “Oh, for fuck’s-“

               “Language.”

               Frank glares. It’s gonna be like that, huh? “I gave you my word that nothing will happen to this place.”

               “You did. And I’m grateful. Matthew will be, too, I expect, when he wakes up.”

               Jesus Christ, he doesn’t look smug, but the old man is fucking proud of himself, settled there in his seat at the kid’s bedside. Frank doesn’t say anything more. He marches out of the room.

               Sister’s walking up in the hallway. Fuck. Frank tucks his hands into his pockets, and his jacket goes and pulls on his re-dressed wrist and fingers, and to hell with this place. It’s no wonder Red’s such a self-righteous little shit when this is what raised him.

               “Good morning,” Maggie says. She’s got a garbage bag in one hand, crinkling at her side. “Sleep well?”  
  
               Frank isn’t going to give her that. He isn’t giving her anything else. “He’s all set-up for now.”

               “Yes. Your instructions were quite clear last night."   
  
               So he did make himself useful before he passed the hell out. Thank Christ. “I’ll come back around in a bit, restock.”

               “And if the IV port gets infected, if he has a poor reaction to antibiotics-“  
  
               “Yeah, I’ll be back for that too.”

               Maggie does not let him past. “How will you know? I can’t have you lingering here, regardless of what Paul says about you. One nosy neighbour, one attentive passerby, and I’ll have the NYPD at the door, the FBI. All on the hunt for Frank Castle.”

               She says the last bit quietly, eyes averted. Embarrassed, probably, that she didn’t notice it before, but also worried. Walls have ears in St. Agnes. Christ, Red really did grow up here, didn’t he? Probably made Maggie’s life a holy terror.

               Frank lowers his head slightly. It doesn’t help. The cross on the wall glares at him. Got Maggie in front of him, a statue of the virgin in Red’s room staring through the windows, Lantom in his periphery ready to join the conversation, and Red looming like the Devil on his shoulder.

               He tilts his head toward Red’s room, having no more time for this shit. “You put the statue in the window, I’ll be here. Won’t nobody see me come in or out. You have my word.”

               “Word of the Punisher,” Maggie says under her breath, stepping out of his way.

               He doesn’t let her go so easily. “And what have you got? You’re here busting my ass about bringing the cops here, but if it wasn’t for me, you’d’ve put him back together with God damn band-aids.”  
  
               She steps up to him, her face directly in front of his. “I’m here protecting my children, who have been put at risk, who are being made party to lawlessness. Surely even someone like you can respect that, Mr. Castle.”  
  
               “I do.”

               “Good.” Maggie shoves the garbage bag she’s carrying into his chest, her tiny knuckles knocking against the broken ribs that she had to be aiming for. “Then go. And take this with you.”

               Frank does as she says.

* * *

                The car isn’t in the back lot. Frank wracks his brain trying to remember, eventually discovering it a couple blocks away, surrounded by cops. He puts some distance between himself and St. Agnes after that. Not that the boys in blue will have much luck tracking him with the car anyway, but Frank needs some space to clear his head, not to mention ditch whatever the hell Maggie gave him. Probably dressings, other incriminating evidence.

               He doesn’t expect it. Doesn’t know why – what the fuck else is it gonna be? – but it still gives Frank pause to open the bag and see Red’s armour inside. Blood-stained, dirt-coated, shorn. Frank wraps it back up in the garbage bag as soon as he lays eyes on it, and he doesn’t look at it again until he’s found an empty building, concrete floored, empty oil drums and bins scattered around the edges.

               Frank gets a fire going. He drops the suit into the drum once the flames get hot. The suit resists at first. The blaze starts caving, unable to muster the strength against the Devil, but eventually, the fringed edges start to smolder. The cuts give a path for the fire, and soon the red of the suit is charring to black, crumbling away into nothing, like it was never there to begin with. Frank doesn’t know how long he stands there staring. All he knows is that he can’t look away.

* * *

 

Happy reading!


	5. Gravity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> Whew! I am back from my adventures, and while I will soon be departing for more, I will have my computer with me. Thank you for your patience, Readers! The past two weeks have been extremely helpful in figuring out where this story is heading.
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

 

“This is the fate you’ve carved on me  
Your law of gravity  
This is the fate you’ve carved on me  
On me.”

~Vienna Teng, “Gravity”

* * *

               The statue doesn’t move.

               Frank can barely contain himself. Sister seems to be more stubborn and self-righteous than the kid. Not the type to ask for help even when she could really fucking use it. Only thing that keeps Frank from busting down the door is finding a vantage point on the infirmary window. Building next to the church gives him the view. He puts in time staring through a scope at Red’s arm on the bed, pale as the sheets save for the bruises which broaden and deepen over the following days. Nuns take turns sitting at his bedside. Sometimes they read to him, sometimes they read to themselves. Sister Maggie, meanwhile, flits in and out of the room, giving orders and directing care before disappearing again to tend to other children.

               Matter of time, Frank thinks, lowering the scope and departing for another couple of hours. Work to do, and he does it, igniting a network that sets him up for what’s to come. He returns at night to find that’s still the case: matter of time. Looking up from street level, the windows are still empty. Heading for the rooftops doesn’t reveal anything. Red’s arm is lying there on the bed. Hasn’t moved, hasn’t twitched, hasn’t anything. The chair by his bedside is strangely empty.

               Frank shifts his focus. He zooms-in to check the rise and fall of Red’s chest, the tube in his forearm, before there he goes again, looking at that empty chair. Guess the kid doesn’t need a babysitter while he’s just lying there, but knowing Red, he’ll be needing supervision before long. What’s Sister going to do then?

               The thought gives Frank reason to pause. He lowers the scope, stretches his neck, takes in the rest of the city. His eyes are adjusting to freedom, to the harsh interplay of light and shadow, of unceasing motion. Super Max was a city that never sleeps too, but the threats were known, trackable. Out here, Frank’s got phantoms breathing down his neck. The girl’s out there. Cops are on the hunt. Damn shadows in the orphanage could be kids or could be sisters or could be the remnants of the immortal ninja army. Here he is with a scope, no gun – like an _asshole_ – playing peek-a-boo because Mother Superior doesn’t know the kid well enough to have him watched at all God damn times.

               Figures that he finds Red moving. It fucking figures. The empty chair is an invitation. Red’s hand is clawing, gripping at the blanket, then raises a couple inches, reaching. Frank scans the room, waiting for the missing Sister to return, but no one comes. Red’s motions quicken. He fumbles, gripping the side of the mattress; he pushes, inching slightly up on the bed. Then he collapses and starts the whole cycle over again.

               Frank tears the scope away from his face. He gets to his feet and starts off the roof, stopping only when a shadow appears at the infirmary window. Maggie’s face catches the dim light from the street below, but Frank can’t make out much more than the movement of her lips without looking through the scope again.

               She wraps a hand around Red’s, puts the other where Frank can’t see, by the kid’s face maybe. Her mouth stops moving. She looms in harsh silence to Frank’s eyes, gripping Red, holding him steady, holding _Frank_ steady, only loosening her grasp when Red settles back into stillness.

               At first, Frank thinks she might leave. Maggie certainly seems about to, but she eases herself into the chair at Red’s bedside. Only then does Frank notice the hand she hasn’t moved from the kid’s, the hand that stays till dawn creeps through the window and another sister arrives.

               Whatever Maggie says is lost to Frank, but it gets the other sister explaining herself, apologizing, a sad expression on her face as she replaces Maggie at Red’s side. “Feelin’ guilty?” Frank remembers Father asking. Answer’s still no, but hell if Maggie or her fellow sister feel the same way.

* * *

                He makes a pass of Karen’s place. Doesn’t stop or nothing. Just makes sure it’s still standing and then keeps walking.

               Nelson’s apartment is different. Frank slips through a service door, rides the elevator up to the suite, picks the lock to let himself inside long enough to bug the place. Bit of a wild card, Nelson. Not much for him to say to cops: seems like the only thing anyone knows is that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen went down with Midland Circle. But last time Murdock went missing, Nelson was having the boys in blue do drive-bys of the kid’s neighbourhood. Keeping an ear on him is a good idea.

               Last place Frank goes is Red’s apartment. The rooftop door is unlocked. Frank opens it slightly, listening, but the place is empty. Daytime fills every room, warming the space in such a way that it’s unrecognizable from the last time Frank was there. He’s used to darkness with Red. Used to dust and death. Apartment looks lived-in again, occupied. Casefiles are stacked on the table next to a laptop. Dishes for more than one setting are clean in the rack by the sink. Mail’s sorted on the counter. The couch is new, with darker upholstery this time. Better for hiding bloodstains.

               Frank expects her to be there. Keeps feeling her behind him, making the hairs on the back of his neck stick up. Making his hand hover the sidepiece he’s got. Red would know. He’d hear that heartbeat of hers, smell her, give Frank a head’s up, but there’s no Red. No Elektra neither. Not holding court in the armchair or cozied up in the bed or even hiding, waiting to burst out stabbing like the hellion she is.

               He finds the gym bag in the closet waiting for him. Frank reaches for it, catches himself. Sunlight brings him back to the present, reminds him this isn’t before. Can’t take anything this time. Can’t risk Nelson or Karen or anybody figuring Murdock’s alive. Sisters seem to be keeping him clothed well enough with the stuff they got on-hand.

               He puts the closet back the way he found it and turns to go. Sunlight lights the silk sheen of the bed, stopping Frank dead in his tracks. He forgot about the stupid sheets. Devil of Hell’s Kitchen’s precious skin gets chafed by anything less. Gonna get bedsores from whatever they have at the orphanage.

               Frank has the sheet off the bed and bundled under one arm without another thought. He arranges the blanket the way he found it, goes for the pillows and stops again. Kid’s got pyjamas shoved at the head of his bed: some sweats, a hoodie. _The_ hoodie. Too big for him by half, at least in Frank’s mind, but worn recently if its location is any indication.

               He should leave the damn thing. Bad enough he’s got the sheet. But hell if he’s not taking both with him to the roof. It’s not like anybody will know to miss it. Besides, it’s his hoodie. Kid was just holding onto it for him while he was in Super Max.

               The door doesn’t quite latch behind him. Frank turns and gives it a push, and there it is again, that prickling on the back of his neck. That feeling of being stalked. He checks the top of the roof access – nothing. Whips around with his gun drawn – he’s alone. He chases the ghost of her around to the sight of all the other empty rooftops around him. The sunny streets below filled with crowds she might have jumped into, alleys where she might be hiding, vehicles she might be driving.

               And for what? To watch him sweat? Fuck, Frank curses himself out. He’s being an idiot, not thinking clearly, running around this God damn city, trying to put pieces together that don’t fit and find people that don’t want to be found and what the hell does it matter, he finds her? What the hell is she gonna do besides sit in that chair and hold Red’s hand as the whole orphanage comes down around them because that’s what things do, they come crashing down. Especially where Red’s concerned.

               Maybe she is dead. She better be dead. And then, the crux of it, the actual fucking problem amidst this shitshow, that if she isn’t, she better hope Frank doesn’t find her.

               Frank leaves it at that.

* * *

                No statue.

               Daylight makes the orphanage a busy place. Can’t risk being spotted there, even with his beard coming in, so Frank goes to St. Matthew’s. A scant number of parishioners dot the pews. Father’s nowhere to be seen. Frank searches, eventually finding the old man hidden away by the confessionals.

               Makings of a smile on Father’s face when he says, “Confession doesn’t start till 3, but I could make an exception if you’re interested.”  
  
               “Not,” Frank replies.

               Lantom shrugs. “Can’t blame a priest for trying.”  
  
               “Yes, I can.”

               The old man gives an exasperate half-roll of his eyes. He lowers his voice almost to a whisper. “There’s been no change.” Then, “As I’m sure you’re aware.”  
  
               Frank doesn’t give Father a damn thing more than a nod. He draws the bundle of fabric from under his arm and passes it off. “Gonna have to restock soon, Sister wants me there or not.”  
  
               “I’ll talk to Maggie.”  
  
               Another nod, and Frank leaves it at that, passing back into the sanctuary. He keeps his head down but his eyes tracking through the parishioners: the blonde woman in the front row, the couple lighting candles, the old man in sunglasses near the back. Frank leaves, not knowing what’s more stupid: that she’s not there, or that he’s still thinking she will be.

* * *

                Nighttime finds him back on the rooftop. Nowhere else to be: no leads on Elektra, and Red will need a supply run soon regardless of what Mother Superior thinks. Frank occupies himself by listening in on Nelson’s apartment. Karen’s there. Her sigh comes through loud and clear in his earpiece, followed by the crisp pop of beers opening.

               They come to the subject of Murdock quick enough. Nelson keeps trying to dodge, but Karen doggedly brings him back to it. He finally says, in a defeated mumble, “Could take them months to dig out Midland Circle.”  
  
               Karen jumps, armed and at the ready with an answer. “Well, maybe they won’t have to. Maybe he wasn’t even down there.”  
  
               “We both know he was down there.”  
  
               “That doesn’t mean he still is! He could have gotten out!”

               “Then where is he? If he got out, why hasn’t he shown up yet?”  
  
               “I don’t know.”

               “So he’s stuck in a tunnel somewhere or lost or –“  
  
               “Why is this so hard for you?” Karen snaps. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that he is okay? That he is coming back?”  
  
               Nelson’s beer hits the countertop like a gavel. “It isn’t! That’s the problem! You don’t think I haven’t thought of all this? Every day that they don’t find a body is one more day that I go thinking he is just going to turn up.”  
  
               “He is, Foggy.”  
  
               “Is he? I don’t know that. _We_ don’t know that.”

               “I know.”  
  
               But she doesn’t. Not really. Frank hears it through his earpiece, that breathless desperation of hers. She wants to know that far more than she actually does.

               Nelson doesn’t call her on it, not directly. “We knew one day that we would lose him to this.”  
  
               “No, no, you can’t start thinking like that,” Karen says.  
  
               “I can’t keep thinking the way that I am! The way that you are! I keep thinking about him underground, and it’s worse when he’s not dead, because he’s lost. He’s dying, slowly and alone. He’s dying or…” He chokes on his next breath.

               “Take a drink, Nelson,” Frank mutters.

               Nelson doesn’t. He’s crying. “He could be dying down there for _days_.”

               Karen puts her beer down, and she must go to him, because her voice goes soft and quiet, her words get all sweet and hopeful, and Frank takes out his earpiece. He can’t hear it. He’s got eyes on the kid, alive, and he can’t listen to what she’s saying, and that should say a whole lot more than it does but Frank won’t let it. He goes back to watching Red’s hand, the bloody cuts and bruises from where the building hit, from where he crawled out. Wonder what that looked like to him, the darkness, when it was crushing him under its weight.

               Sister in the chair looks up from her book, hearing something. Frank orders her not to go under his breath, but she does, disappearing into the darkness. He sits up straighter in his perch, counting the seconds of her absence, minding that Red’s hand doesn’t move on the bed. He gives her a minute. One minute. Then he doesn’t give a shit what she or Sister Maggie have to say; he’s going in.

               A figure returns to the doorway. Shadows make it difficult to see, but it doesn’t take long for Frank to figure out it isn’t one of the sisters. Ain’t Lantom neither. No, this one isn’t affiliated with the church. They’re wearing ill-fitting clothes, the sorts of things they’d steal off a clothesline if they just crawled out from under a crater in the earth.

               Frank waits for a glimpse of her face, her hair, anything to confirm, but the person in Red’s room knows just how to stand so the light won’t hit them. They know exactly where to be so Frank can’t make them out. He strains to see them through the scope, able to make out only the smallest details: that they’re human, that they’ve avoided detection, that they’re just _standing there_.

               A hand appears in front of the window. Light-stained, overexposed. Frank lowers the scope. He creeps to his exit, making his way down the building to the church parking lot. He glances quickly up at the window to see the figure is still there before making his way through the back door of the orphanage.

               He’s up the stairs, gun in his hand, almost at the infirmary floor, when Maggie catches him. Frank puts a hand to his lips before she can speak before gesturing her to move back. Her lips go into a thin line; her eyes are fire and brimstone. But she does it, disappearing back with her charges as he continues upstairs in silence.

               The shadow stretches out from the infirmary, a head and torso very clearly defined along with something else above the shoulder. Frank recognizes the shape from those fucking ninjas: katana. Not really Elektra’s weapon of choice, but she’s used one before, and pickins for weapons have gotta be slim now that she’s broken ranks with her ninja benefactors.

               Frank sidles up to the doorway, the shadow fixed on the floor beside him. _One batch, two batch –_ and he whips around the corner into the room.

               Shadow’s gone. Vanished. To be fucking expected. Frank doesn’t stop to think: he moves, tracking, before spotting a rush of movement out the far door.

               The chase takes him downstairs, away from the kid, the orphans, the sisters, through an entrance into St. Matthew’s. Light gets dimmer, more diffuse, through the stained glass and wood. Dust doesn’t help. Whole church looks like it’s in cinders, and Frank loses track of his target in the gloom.

               He hears a click further off and follows. A corridor leads him to a gate, unlocked and ajar, exactly her kind of invitation to a trap. Doesn’t help that Frank hears a footstep now, one, a single tap against a concrete floor that shakes up the embers in his head to flames. Swear to God, if she’s been hiding here this whole time, right under his nose, right under Red’s nose, Frank doesn’t care what the fuck he said to the priest.

               He presses onward, down a set of stone steps into the basement of the church. The light’s even dimmer down here than the sanctuary. A patch of red is visible in the corner from the stained glass windows, but the rest of the space a dusty blue. Pillars obscure what little visibility Frank has, prompting him to use one for cover.

               She might be gone, but Frank doubts it. She didn’t lead him down here to flee; she brought him down here to fight. “Got a look at your handiwork,” Frank says, “You proud of yourself now? Doing that?”

               He can’t hear a damn thing. He even inches out from behind the pillar, gives her an advantage, before letting himself vanish again. No sign of her in the dark. She’s probably skulking up to his position, using those ninja moves like the kid. That in mind, Frank moves into the corner, gives himself a view of the space. Nothing’s creeping across the ceiling or flipping out of the walls. Yet.

               “Don’t keep me waiting, sweetheart,” Frank urges her.

               Something taps against a far pillar. Frank holds his ground, listening as the sound appears again – _tap_ – this time a few paces to the right. Again, there’s a pause, and then _tap,_ circling around the room to come closer and closer to him.

               Frank turns away from the sound, into the empty space at his left, exactly where the minx doesn’t want him looking. Exactly where she would be attacking him if he didn’t look. Fucking ninjas.

               He ducks just in time for the katana to swing overhead. The resounding crack against the wall above his head is oddly wooden. Frank doesn’t have time to think too hard about it. He fires at the shadow’s legs, missing thanks to ninja reflexes that propel that shadow out of sight again. Frank thinks they’re in for another standoff, but the figure appears suddenly, a blade catching on the side of the gun and knocking it aside, nearly taking Frank’s hand with it.

               Frank kicks and manages to land a blow for all the good it does. The figure is double-wielding, one sword in each hand, and swings one down into Frank’s spine. Wood claps hard against Frank’s shoulders. He rolls to get out of the way, narrowly dodging a blow to the head.

               The figure is gone by the time he’s standing, but Frank isn’t kept waiting long. He’s knocked again with the wooden sword, slashed with the blade. It’s fast enough to be Elektra, certainly ruthless enough, and yet the shape’s all wrong, the motions have a kind of crassness. She’s dances; this guy, and it is a guy, he’s direct, to the point. Out doing exactly what he means to.

               Frank is slammed into a pillar, blood draining out of his face, his arms. A blow to his chest tightens the vice-grip around his heart, knocking the air clean out of his lungs. He gasps for breath but never seems to get any. Through the dark, he sees a flash of white where the figure’s eyes peer at him from the darkness.

               “So you’re Frank Castle,” the man says. The amusement in his voice is amplified by the chamber. He raises his sword. “Nice to meet you.”  
  
               Frank throws himself in the direction of the blade. The fact that it’s a misdirection hits him around the same time as the wooden sword, which swings down on him from behind and slams him headfirst into the floor.

* * *

 

Happy reading!


	6. Seven Devils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city. 
> 
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> Thank you for your patience, Readers! My adventures have continued, hence the newest delay between updates. However, I will have better computer access over the next couple weeks. Thank you for your kind readership! Enjoy!

* * *

 

“Holy water cannot help you now  
See I've had to burn your kingdom down  
And no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out  
I'm gonna raise the stakes, I'm gonna smoke you out”   
  
~Florence + The Machine, “Seven Devils” 

* * *

                “Frank? Frank.”   
  
               He’s up, he’s up, he’s moving. Basement and Maggie swimming around him blearily. Mouth full of snot and blood. Concussion dulling his hearing, throwing off his balance. He hits more pillars trying to walk than he did in the fight and that’s saying something.

               A sink appears beneath him. Sight of it gives him vertigo. Frank pitches forward, retching. The porcelain spatters with every kind of red. Sister gets the tap going. Water feels good on his face, over his scalp. Wakes him up a bit more. Gets him to the point where he can hear her chiding him.

               “-shooting at someone in a church. I should have called the police last night.”

               “Yeah, yeah,” Frank says. He swipes at his face to dry it, flinging the pink water into the sink. “But you didn’t.”

               “What happened?” Maggie demands. “Who was it?”  
  
               The sunlight is blinding. Frank puts a hand over his eyes, sinking back against the wall. He touches the edge of his scalp laceration. Damn thing’s reopened and oozing. “I didn’t get a good look,” he tells her.

               “You saw them well enough to fire at them.”  

               Frank holds steady, his injuries on full display for her. “He saw me a lot better.”   
  
               Maggie folds her arms across her chest. “It was a man.”   
  
               “Yeah.” The details are fuzzy. Shadows playing against shadows. “Tall. Armed.” He doesn’t mention the white eyes. Sounds crazy, given the dark.

               “With a sword?”   
  
               The cuts on his arms have her attention. Deep as they are, they’ve stopped bleeding. “Yeah,” Frank replies, “Two of ‘em. The other one was wood.”

               She releases a breath, eyes widening to take-in the idea of a man with swords, before she sets her expression and gets back to work. “Nobody saw or heard anything, not until you started shooting.”

               Nothing to say to that. Nothing helpful, anyway. The ancient ninja army is gone as far as Frank can tell, and none of them would get that close to Red without taking him out. None of them ever did the number on Frank’s skull like the guy last night. No, “Whoever it was, they know Red. Murdock.”

               “And they know he’s here,” Maggie adds.

               Frank nods. “And he didn’t hurt anyone: not the sisters, not the kids.”   
  
               “Nobody besides you.”   
  
               He shrugs, shaking it off. “I’m fine.”

               Maggie sighs. She inches around the sink to him, inspecting the wounds on his arms, on his head. Frank endures her observations, distracting himself. Easy enough with daylight filling the space. There’s a scratch where blade hit stone in the corner. Blood on pillars and the floor.

               “Whoever it was could have torn through children and nuns,” Maggie says.

               “But they didn’t,” Frank agrees.

               “They were just here for Matthew.”

               “Seems that way.”  

               She retreats, back to the sink, where a small collection of first aid supplies is waiting. Must have brought them down this morning. Basement doesn’t look like its seen much use as anything more than a storage area. There are shelves overloaded with clothing and tools, beyond which Frank can make out a door. Guy probably escaped through there last night.

               Maggie runs an alcohol swab over his head. She trims the strands of the ripped sutures, tugging them out of his skin. Again, Frank endures. “Do you know of anyone who would be interested in Matthew?” she asks. Frank huffs, prepared to list all the crazies out to get the kid, but Maggie clarifies, “Someone who wouldn’t cause him harm?”   
  
               “The woman he was with, Elektra,” Frank says, though that’s not entirely accurate. “She wouldn’t come in here to kill him. But she wouldn’t come in here to leave neither.” At least, he doesn’t think. That she’s still MIA doesn’t make any fucking sense. “He’s got friends, but they aren’t hauling swords around. They would have kicked down the front door, raised all sorts of legal hell to see him.”

               “As opposed to you, running around here with a gun.”   
  
               “He was armed,” Frank reminds her.

               “Lot of good it did you.”

               Fuck, she’s got him there. “You had a guy running through here with some swords last night and didn’t hear a God damn thing.”   
  
               “And how did you know? Could you hear him?”  
  
               “I saw him.”   
  
               “Spying on us.”   
  
               “Doing what needs doing. That sister you left with the kid-“   
  
               “What kid?”   
  
               “Red,” Frank says.

               “Matthew.”

               “She left. Guy must have come up with some kind of distraction.”

               “There are other children to attend to,” Maggie says. She approaches his scalp with a needle, and Frank hunkers down, gives her better access. That first sting hits him hard. “They create plenty of distractions on their own.”   
  
               Frank doesn’t let himself get distracted. “She wasn’t there. The guy came in.”   
  
               “And?”   
  
               “And he just…he just stood there. Didn’t touch nothing, didn’t do nothing.”   
  
               “Until you charged in.”   
  
               “Wouldn’t’ve had to, I was doing things right.” A fucking redundant argument with her. Frank huffs, following the memories. “Chased him down here. He must’ve gone out through that door.”

               “Do you think he’ll be back?”   
  
               “I don’t know. Depends.”   
  
               “On?”   
  
               “On what he wants with Murdock. Seemed pretty satisfied to look last night. That might change once Red’s back up and around.”

               Maggie finishes up, clipping the loose end of the sutures. Frank rises back to his full height, surprised to find that she hasn’t left. She inspects his face, his chest, his hands and wrists. “What about you?” she asks, examining one of the fresh cuts on his forearms. “What do you want?”

               The answer seems so obvious, so painfully obvious, Frank can’t figure out why she’s asking. “Want to know who this guy is, where Red’s girl went; if the ninjas are still around and what they’re doing if they are-“   
  
               “I meant with Matthew,” Maggie says. “What do you want with Matthew?”   
  
               The bloody smears on the pavement seem like a safe place to lay his gaze. Frank waits for an answer to emerge. None is forthcoming. Best he can manage is, “Want to make sure he doesn’t go and get himself crushed under another building.”

               He passes muster, or at least that’s what Frank thinks, given that Maggie doesn’t prod him about it further. Instead, she asks, “Did you break into his apartment?”

               “The door was open,” Frank snaps. “Was there checking the place out for the girl. Figured I’d grab a few things.”   
  
               “For Matthew.”

               “Jesus, would you and the old man stop saying that.”   

               Maggie retreats, satisfied. She snaps the gloves off her hands. “The silk sheet was his?” she asks.

               Frank thinks at first that it’s the concussion making her sound amused. “Yeah,” he replies. Maggie stacks the gloves in one hand, the corners of her lips flickering up into a smile. “You believe that? Silk sheets.”   
  
               She doesn’t, shaking her head. Her arms fold across her chest again, and she surveys the basement. The bloody marks on the floor are almost as vivid as the sunlight pouring through the stained-glass window in the far corner.

               “I’ll clean up, Sister,” Frank says.

               Maggie comes out of her reverie. She nods to him, just the once. “I’ll bring a towel down for you.”

               “There’s a mop over there-“   
  
               But she’s already heading up the stairs, back into the church.

               Frank heaves his aching bones over to the mop. Bucket’s buried under a heap of old clothing, habits by looks of things. He puts those on a shelf, grabs the bucket by the handle. By then, Maggie’s coming back downstairs. She holds out a towel to him.

               “Not gonna work on the floor,” Frank says.

               “Good thing it’s not for the floor then,” Maggie replies sarcastically. “It’s for you. There’s a shower over there. I’ll find you something to wear that hasn’t been in a sword fight.”

               There’s an eye roll at the end of that sentence. Implied, but there. Doesn’t mean Maggie’s not taking shit seriously; if anything, the derision is how Frank knows she’s on top of things, as much as she can be.

               “Come upstairs when you’re done,” she says.

               Takes Frank’s concussed brain a second to catch-up. By that point, Maggie has already taken the bucket from him and gone to the sink. She runs the water so loud they’d have to yell to say more. Frank makes his way into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind him.

               The water shuts off. Maggie takes the bucket, water sloshing against the sides. Frank gets the shower running before he has to listen to her mopping up.

* * *

 

               There are clothes waiting for him outside the door, on the edge of the sink: pair of pants, tee, a gray sweater. Things that cover up the mess the guy made of his arms. They do nothing for his mug, the craggy marks of his broken nose, his black eye, that scalp wound. If Maggie’s trying to not scare the kids, she has another thing coming, having him come upstairs through the orphanage.

               Frank puts the clothes on though. They’re musty but unbloodied. He doesn’t recognize his reflection: collared shirt and sweater, beard and hair coming in. Even the Frankenstein laceration on his scalp, his bruised mug, they don’t look like him in this get-up. Don’t look respectable neither, but don’t look like him.

               He heads up through the church, back into the orphanage. Couple kids pass him on the stairs, barely give him a second glance. Few more in the infirmary being ushered out by a sister. Frank dodges the pack of them. He comes to the kid’s room. Maggie’s there. She’s taking Red’s pulse with one hand and rubbing the silk sheet with the other.

               “As a child, Matthew eschewed all forms of comfort,” she says, releasing the kid. The sheet stays in her grasp, a curiosity. “Strange to think he would make a concession as an adult.”   
               “Don’t you worry, Sister. He still eschews all sorts of things,” Frank replies.

               She retracts her hand. “He does seem more settled with it here. He’s starting to have – well, you know. Spying.”

               Frank’s glad to not beat around the bush. “Good sign, him moving around.”

               Maggie can’t deny that, though her lips tighten into a fine line. “He keeps saying her name, the woman’s. Elektra?”

               “Yeah.”   
  
               “The anti-inflammatories are helping with his mobility. He still doesn’t seem to be aware.”   
  
               “Seems to respond to you holding his hand.”   
  
               She doesn’t balk. Gets a little more disappointed, if anything: in herself, this time. “Matthew had nightmares when he was younger. Holding his hand would help…calm him down.”   
  
               Frank never tried that tactic. “Found yelling at him worked just fine.”   
  
               “Found yelling at Matthew encouraged him towards the opposite,” Maggie replies. “Hard to tell if he hears anyone. Touch seems to be his strongest sense."  
  
               “I’ll bring some bags of fresh saline, more anti-inflammatories, painkillers.”   
  
               “The woman, Elektra," Maggie adds.  
  
               “Yeah,” Frank says. “Can’t figured out why she hasn’t brought herself yet.”   
  
               “The man last night –“   
  
               “He knew her. Must have.”   
  
               “Is he looking for her too?”   
  
               “Maybe.” Frank revises his answer: “Hopefully. Having someone else after her might help flush her out.”

               “Could he be working for her? With her?”   
  
               “Guy like that doesn’t work for or with anybody.” Guy like that is like Murdock. Like him.

               Frank turns, prepared to leave. Maggie seems like she’s done with him too. Got her back to him, her eyes out the window.

               But she surprises him with, “I never thought it was Matthew.” She looks at the kid in question on the bed. “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Knowing it now, I suppose it make sense. He always was a fighter, Matthew. Like his father.”

               Mentions of Red’s old man jars something for Frank. “His dad taught him how to fight. Anybody else teach him?”

               Maggie gives a small shrug. “Paul – Father, he likes to teach some of the boys billiards.”

               “What about fighting?”

               “No, no, Paul couldn’t teach Matthew to fight. Well,” Maggie considers this, “He probably could, but nothing compared to what Jack taught him.”   
  
               Frank knows. His feet won’t move: that’s how much he knows. Sure enough, the longer he stands there, Maggie says, “There was another man. I don’t remember his name.”   
  
               He’s heard part of this story before. Little Matthew Murdock, trained to be a fucking ninja by some old man who threw him off rooftops and beat his ass with a stick. Frank’s bruised back throbs at the thought. “This guy, he blind?”   
  
               “Yes,” Maggie says. “One of the sisters contacted him. Matthew was having difficulties. Focusing, mainly. He was distracted, overwhelmed. This man, I don’t know how the sister found him. He said he could help. And by the time he left, Matthew seemed more settled.”   
  
               “Seemed,” Frank notes.   
  
               “Seemed. But I don’t know.”   
  
               She knows. Frank does, too. He tries to offer her some consolation: “Who knows with Red.”

               “Yeah,” Maggie says, “Who knows with Matthew.”   
  
                But they both know.                  
  
               Frank gets back on track. “The sister who contacted this guy: she still here?”   
  
               “No. She passed away three years ago.”

               “And this guy, he never taught any of the other kids?”   
   
              “Not that I’m aware.”

               Probably not. Guy like that isn’t just teaching any kid ninja fighting. Frank finds little comfort in the thought. There are still at least two kids who got chucked off rooftops. Shit, no wonder Red and his girl are the way that they are. “I don’t know if he’ll come back, Sister,” Frank says, “and I don’t know you’ll know if he does.”

               “Will you?” Maggie asks.

               “Gonna try.”

               She nods. Leaves it at that.

               “I’ll be back later with new stuff. Leave it with Father.”

               He’s one foot out the door when she says, “I’ll put the statue in the window, we need anything else.”

               Frank leaves without looking back.

* * *

                Lantom invites him for a coffee when he brings the next load of supplies; Frank turns him down. Spent enough time at the church for one day. He needs some distance, needs some perspective. The next twenty-four hours feel like time wasted. No sign of Elektra, no sign of the old man; Red’s still asleep and the sisters sit vigil and Frank keeps watch. His skin crawls and his teeth are on edge and every siren in the distance, every rustle of footsteps, every horn honking and tires scraping on the pavement, it grinds on Frank. Whole shitty world out there. Devil of Kitchen ain’t around. People are starting to notice.

               He’s so focused on that he almost misses it: next day, around noon, the statue of Mary’s in the infirmary window. Frank wracks his brain for possible explanations. Kid was fine last night, fine this morning. No sign of the old man anywhere. He sneaks in through the back door, up the stairs, arrives to see Maggie tending to Red’s bandages.

               “Would you mind?” she asks, tilting her head towards the kid.

               Frank can’t shake the itch under his skin. He rolls up his sleeves and comes over to the bed.

               “Usually one of the sisters helps,” Maggie continues, “but they’ve taken some of the younger children to the park.”

               The clamminess of Red’s swollen skin is awful; the extent of his muscle depletion is worse. Frank lifts him too easily. Maggie easily wraps the bandage around his diminishing waist. Kid’s body is eating itself up from the inside. The swelling is the bulkiest part of him. He stays asleep any longer, that shit’ll be the only part of him left.

* * *

               The need to break something is so strong that Frank doesn’t stop till he satisfies it. Doesn’t take him long in the city. Busts a few noses in alleyways to get the names and addresses of suppliers, then he suits up, gets geared up. He works his way from one location to the next, a lone heartbeat emerging through carnage.

               And why not? Cops don’t do shit. No Devil of Hell’s Kitchen is coming to save them.

               He’s back at his safehouse washing the blood off his hands, the ringing in his ears at an apex, and he’s still waiting. He shuts off the taps, demanding himself what for, what the hell is he waiting for. It’s been days. It’s gonna be weeks more still. The fucking pins and needles in his muscles, that feeling of roaches under his skin, it should be settled for a bit, satisfied. But he just did his fucking job, so what the hell is wrong. What the hell is he waiting for?

               Frank storms his way to the rooftop access. He heads for his nest. The scope’s in his hands before he has a clear view of the kid.

               A shadow crosses the pane of glass. Frank reaches for his gun. Misdi-fucking-rection again, these God damn ninja bastards. He whips around, following the sudden spike of his hairs standing on end, to find that – surprise, surprise – he’s not alone.

               “Evening, Frank,” the old man says. He’s standing there in the line of fire, cooler than even Red with having a gun pointed at him. That he’s a smartass only tightens the association: “Having a good night?”

               “Just getting started,” Frank replies.

               “Glad to hear it. Was wondering when you would give up on this babysitting gig of yours.”

               “What about your babysitting gig? The hell are you doing here?”

               “Elektra Natchios.” He says her name slowly, letting every syllable rattle along the brickwork, across the windowpanes. Calling her out. “You know her?”   
  
               Frank shifts just to make a sound. The old man doesn’t move, gives no indication what he can and can’t hear. If he’s anything like Red, he already knows the answer to his question. “What’s she to you?”

               “Person of interest.”

               “And the kid?”

               The old man takes time coming up with the words. “Collateral damage.”

               “Nothing collateral happens to that kid,” Frank says.

               “What do you call standing under a building as it collapses?”

               “I call it same shit, different day when the Devil’s involved.”   
  
               If Frank didn’t know any better, he’d say the old man laughed a little. “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Matthew never did anything that wasn’t dramatic.”

               “What about you? What do they call you? Stick?”   
  
               That gets the old man’s attention. He seems to straighten in the dark. Streetlights catch the whites of his irises. “You know my name.”

               Frank doesn’t lower the gun. He let’s that be the answer.

               “What else do you know?”   
  
               “Enough.”

               “He told you about me.” That’s far more novel to Stick than what Frank knows.

               Frank sticks to his gun. “Enough.”   
  
               Stick moves towards the rooftop edge. Fitting place for the old bastard. “He tell you about her, too?”   
  
               “Didn’t have to. Got to know her pretty good myself.”

               “You looking to kill her?”

               “I’m looking to find her. What happens next is up to her.” Frank lowers the gun for a chest shot so he can watch the old man’s face. “You? Are you looking to kill her?”

               Anybody else wouldn’t notice, but there’s a lot going on in Stick’s expression as he surveys the street. Listening. “I’m looking to give her the option.”

               He turns suddenly, faces Frank, one ear fixed on Red’s location. “What are you willing to do to find her?”

               The answer is obvious. It should be: given who he is, who Stick is, who Elektra is. But Frank doesn’t want to put it into words. He keeps the gun raised between them.  

               Stick’s mouth curves into a smirk. “Good answer.”

* * *

              Happy Reading!  
              


	7. de profundis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> So this chapter was a lot of work. First when I was making the decision to switch POV characters, and then with the way it ended. I would like to thank everybody to whom I came with my quandaries and questions, all of whom helped get my thoughts in order and commit to a direction for this chapter and the next. 
> 
> One of the guiding principles behind this fic is that I did not want to simply rewrite season 3. That being said, I have repurposed some scenes here (and will do so in other places as well). Oh, also, I took some dialogue from _Defenders_ and something happened during the writing process and I kind of ran with it. 
> 
> This marks the first chapter that doesn’t have a track for the playlist; it’s named for a prayer from Psalm 130. The first line translated from Latin is, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” 
> 
> Readers, dear Readers, please enjoy!

* * *

 

“De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine.”

~Psalm 130

* * *

 

 

 

               The darkness calls him by name. Matt tries to respond, but his voice is caught in his throat. The rest of him is trapped.

               Still, he searches for her. He smells nothing but grime. His mouth tastes of blood and ash. His ears have fallen silent. No hearing, then. Fine. He still has his hands, and she was in his arms, so he reaches, or tries to anyways. She takes his hand in hers, and she says his name in such a way that he can feel her voice on his skin, still with him. Always with him.

               Their days in the dark are mercifully numbered, and his last prayers are that she finds her way out or at least dies before him so that he doesn’t leave her alone.

* * *

             Every part of him hurts. He tries to say as much, but whatever comes out of his mouth isn’t more than a groan. Being dragged along, his arms pulling out of their sockets, the rubble scraping along his sides. His feet dead weight beneath him. It’s agony, sheer agony, and he begs for it to stop. He forces his mouth into the shape of the word; he can’t hear himself say it, but out it comes. There’s a response, one that echoes across the walls against his skin, but whatever the darkness says is gets lost amidst the next groan out of his mouth. It’s certainly no match the scream he elicits when he is plunged through a narrow chasm into hell.

               The brutality of the fall should overwhelm him; Matt doesn’t let it. He asks if this is the worst that Hell has to offer: Devils don’t burn. It’s nothing less than he deserves when the fire and brimstone gives way to sewage, sand, and saltwater; when he passes out before he knows she’s still with him.

* * *

 

               Senses muddled, but Matt swears he can feel heat on his skin.

               He raises a hand, searching. The empty air greets him. Someone speaks, a woman. Her voice is pitched to pierce the fog occupying his left ear, but the silence on his right persists. Matt shifts: his arm, his side, his neck, his head. He finds pain, finds flesh, but no sound. There’s a vacancy where his right ear used to be, so there’s no counterweight when a hand does appear (not _her_ hand), when a voice tells him to lay back down (not _her_ voice).

               “Elektra,” he says, and again, the sound only reaches him on the left. He topples towards it and is caught by those foreign hands. He can’t smell, can’t taste, can barely hear, and the only thing he feels is motion and air; silk and sandpaper. “Where…?”  
  
               “St. Agnes, the orphanage,” the voice says. She pushes at his shoulders, and Matt almost gives in. Sitting upright sends a spasm of pain through his lower back and down his hip, again calling attention to that horrifying vacuous absence to his right.

               “How long?” His mind reels through the days in the darkness, tries to count the number of times he’s found her. Because he did find her. He swears he did. They were together to the end.

               But the voice responds with, “Several weeks,” and what little strength Matt has left inside himself surges. He pushes against her, against the pain, against the darkness shrouding his senses. The hand he’s been holding, the person he’s been clinging to… “Where is she?” he demands. The only answer he gets is to stay in bed. “Elektra, I have to…I have to find her…I…”  
  
               The edge doesn’t register until he falls. His shoulders hit the hardwood first and do nothing to stop the impact from knocking the wind out of him. The pain in his right hip yanks on his lower back. The left side of his abdomen goes up in flames. A piercing sting rings out from his right arm. His left ear seals shut, muffling what little hearing he has left.

               The hands come back to his sides, and he wants to fight them. He wants to say her name again, call for her, for all the good it’ll do when the darkness is closing in on him from all sides.       

               He’s aware of being lifted, of being held. Of his name being said, orders being given. Aware, distantly, of the chest touching his, a heartbeat murmuring through his skin beneath the white-hot twist in his leg and back, his side. His mouth is moving, words tear themselves through his vocal cords, but he can’t hear them. He can’t hear anything.

               The darkness that comes should be a mercy, but it isn’t. Matt knows she isn’t waiting for him on the other side. Elektra’s gone. 

* * *

 

               The grogginess that follows is different: less dense fog, more stormy seas. Matt rollicks, riding a wave of nausea, of dizziness. Cold and clammy and trembling. He pins himself to the pillow, straining for a point of stability, but his hearing is still off. Shivers distort whatever vibrations might hit his skin. He wants to know if someone’s there, but he doesn’t want to ask. He doesn’t want them to know that he can’t tell even if they already know.

               God, they already know.

               Everything’s moving so fast inside his skull but so sluggishly everywhere else. Matt tries to grab onto the sensations, to put them into order, but he gets the sound of an explosion, gets concrete blasting and foundations crumbling. He gets the last time he touched her, the last time she spoke to him, and then –

               A throat clears: not his. Someone sitting on his left side. Self-loathing floods him. “I’m at St. Agnes, the orphanage,” Matt says without being reminded. “I’ve been here for a while.”

               “How long?” the sister prompts him sternly.

               God, he recognizes her voice. After all this time, memory blown to smithereens, but there she is, clear as day. “Sister Maggie.”  
  
               She doesn’t congratulate him, merely asks again, “How long?”  
  
               Nothing’s changed about Maggie then. Still the same old sister. “Weeks,” he obliges her, but he doesn’t remember how many exactly. “Several.”

               “Why?” she asks.

               “I don’t know,” he says to her, the bite audible in his voice. “Why am I here?”

               “You asked for Father Lantom, for St. Matthew’s Church. You chose this. Why?”

               He definitely didn’t choose _this_. “I chose Father Lantom.”

               “You chose Father Lantom and Father Lantom chose this. Stop changing the subject. What happened? Why are you here? You need to say it.”

               Matt gives the slightest shakes of his head. Putting it into words means having it slip through his fingers all over again. He affords her the barest possible explanation. “There was an explosion.”  
  
               “Where?”  
  
               He doesn’t want to do this. His perception swirls; his stomach bucks under his throbbing abdominals. Maggie asks him again, nudging his arm in case he’s passed out again. Matt can’t let that humiliation stand. “Midland Circle.”

               “And what were you doing in Midland Circle?”

               “Been several weeks, Sister. I’m sure it’s all over the news.”

               “I want to hear it in your words: what was the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen doing in Midland Circle when it collapsed?”  
  
               Well, if she wants to know: “Hunting an immortal ninja army and destroying them.”

               Maggie removes her hand from his wrist, unamused. Matt grits his teeth against the spin that follows, praying that Maggie doesn’t notice. He can handle this. He’s fine. He’s survived this much.

               “Have they found her? Elektra? Have they…?” Maggie can even lie to him, if she wants: not like he can tell. Shit, it’s not like he can tell. He can’t tell anything. And with his thoughts spinning, his memories scattered, Matt can’t even focus on his question. “Elektra, is she alive?”  
  
               Maggie takes her time replying. “I don’t know. The search parties haven’t turned up anything.”   

               “She was there. She was…she was with me. I remember,” he says, needing that to be clear. Needing it to be certain, to be real.

               “She isn’t here now,” Maggie says.

               Matt groans. He closes his eyes tight, that sick feeling of being too hot and too cold racing through his bloodstream.

               “What is it?” Maggie asks.

               He shakes his head. He’s fine. He forces himself to take a few deep breaths, each one worse than the last as it pulls on his injuries.

               Her hand on his wrist again, more insistent this time. “This is no time to be stubborn. Tell me what’s going on.”    
  
               “I’m fine,” he says.  

               Maggie scoffs, releasing him. She rises from her seat. Feels like a triumph, even as he struggles, to be able to hear her moving, to be able to anticipate her touch. She runs her hands over the dressings on his waist, scooping one to his lower back as she does.

               Matt wills himself to still. The shivers rattle him. Pain thrums from his joints, from his hip especially, up and down his spine. Maggie releases a breath. Her hands retract. She walks over the right side of the bed muttering, “Put far too much work on you these past few weeks for you to try and hide things from me now.”

               “I answered your questions.”

               Her laugh is dulled by her being on the right but no less cutting. “And that’s about all you’ve done. Can’t feed yourself, can’t bathe yourself, can’t get out of bed-“  
  
               “I would if you let me.”

               “Can’t _walk_ ,” Maggie says, refusing to let him have that. She fumbles with things. Matt leans his left ear towards her, trying to parse what she’s doing. He can’t, not with his thoughts in such a tailspin. “Nothing would make me happier, Matthew, than to let you walk out of this room. Surely someone even as self-destructive as you can agree with me about that.”

               A sting in his forearm piques through his anger, his disorientation. “What?” Matt figures he’s making a mistake, but Maggie confirms it’s an IV. “Where did you get it?”  
  
               Maggie’s only response is to push something into the line. Pressure mounts in his vein, then dissipates. “What are you giving me?”

               “Painkillers,” Maggie adjusts the sheet around his hand. “A muscle relaxant.”  
  
               The clammy sick feeling starts to subside, as does the dizziness. Matt didn’t even realize. He takes a steadying breath to check, then another, marvelling at how quickly and easily his nausea vanishes, how he’s able to count himself into meditative calm.

               He tracks the remaining movement in his body. His fingers are the last holdout, brushing lazily over the sheet Maggie’s tucked at his waist. It’s silk. The one underneath him is cotton.

               Maggie comes back to the chair on his left, resuming her watch. There’s a room beyond her. Matt tries to picture the dimensions from when he was a child, but the explosion rattles everything. Before is buried in the rubble. Now is all he knows and what he knows is limited to a bed. To an IV and a silk sheet that St. Agnes definitely didn’t have on-hand.

               “Is there someone else…?” Matt listens, waiting for a heartbeat. He remembers it, he knows he does, but the harder he tries to place it, the wearier he gets. What’s left is the _feeling._ Of knowing something so completely he doesn’t need to hear it for it to be there, for it to be real.

               “There’s no one else here,” Maggie says. “No one knows you’re here.”  

               Matt clutches the silk in his hands. “Liar.”  
  
               She sighs. “Get some rest, Matthew.”  
  
               “Where is he?”

               “Matthew.”  
  
               “Frank?”

               The room reveals nothing. Maggie translates: “He’s not here.”

               The utter chaos of his mind becomes even more infuriating. She tried to withhold information from him. Damn near succeeded too. “Where?” Matt snaps.  

               “I don’t know.”  
  
               “But he was here.” He needs to hear her say it. He needs to know.  
  
               “Frank found you,” she says. “He brought you here and provided us with supplies.”

               The pieces start falling, fragments. Matt can’t piece them together, not with their jagged edges, their lack of cohesion, the meds, the God damn meds.

               “Matthew, calm down,” Maggie says.

               He puts a fist to his sternum, hoping to jar something. The best he can manage is, “Is he still in the city?”  
  
               “I don’t know.”

               “Did he say where he was going?”  
  
               “No,” Maggie replies. “He left three weeks ago.”  
  
               “And you haven’t heard from him since?”

               “No. I called. Left a message to tell him you were awake.”

               “And he didn’t…”  
  
               She doesn’t let him leave that sentence unfinished, speaking aloud exactly the words Matt didn’t want to say. “Come back? No.” And then, because this is Maggie, “Not yet.”  
  
               Matt has to laugh. He has to get a dig in somewhere. “Frank isn’t the type who comes when you call him.”  
               “I’ve gotten to know the type of man Frank Castle is well over the past several weeks,” Maggie states. Her voice carries the same sourness she talks about all the nuisances in her life, Matt included, adding to her case. “He might not come when I call, but he has exceptions. At least one.”

               The arm falls from his chest, unable to be supported any longer. Matt’s finger runs along the silk sheet, his sense-starved brain using that to launch him into a hazy half-memory of an apartment that smelled of artillery, that conducted storms through its walls, that felt safe even when it was full of explosives.

               He’s blasted out of his reverie by bone and dirt and his never-ending search for _her_. “I should be out there.”  
               “But you’re not,” Maggie reminds him. She doesn’t mean it cruelly, but it still smarts to hear. Matt’s body doesn’t respond to the challenge; it _can’t_ , and he doesn’t allow himself for one second to believe it’s the medication keeping him down.

               He lets his eyes close, lets his head fall away from her. Lets himself feel that sting of his diminished hearing in the left, on the strain he can’t withstand to try and hear her breathing. Would be a mercy to be told it’s coming back, and Maggie’s the type who would say that. Maggie’s the type who would believe in the possibility so much it wouldn’t sound like a lie.

               Not that Matt could tell if she was lying anyway.

               Maggie interrupts his thoughts. “It’s not fair to the other children to have a sister watching you through the night.”

               “I never asked for that,” Matt says.

               “Yes, you did. By being stubborn, by crawling away. Can I trust that you’re cogent enough now to control yourself and stay in bed?”

               “Yes.”

               “Good.” Maggie stands. “Good night, Matthew.”

               Her footsteps sound impossibly far away. Matt tries to let that go, but he’s out of his doze, mentally running through all his senses that don’t work anymore. Begging them to wake up. Praying they come back: his right ear, even just a little; his nose, his mouth. He went from one darkness to another, and while the walls aren’t closed in here, while the depths of hell aren’t looking to swallow him up, he’s alone in the vast, empty blackness.

               He gets bold and reaches above his head to the wall. His shoulder aches from the twist, and he doesn’t get to hold the position long, but he forces himself to endure enough for his fingertips to feel nothing. Not the rumble of traffic or the flutter of wind or the faint tremulations of St. Agnes’s rocky edifice. Nothing. There’s nothing.

               Matt puts his hand back at his side. His fingers stretch over the silk, seeking the smoothness. The familiarity. But the lack of accompanying sensory details, the haziness of his memory, the fact that he can’t get out of bed, it culminates in his pulling his hands away. The sheet is just a sheet, just some idiot’s sheet. Frank thought he was saving the Devil’s of Hell’s Kitchen, and this is what he gets? No wonder he left.

               A voice rumbles in the back of his thoughts; Matt forces himself not to hear. His thoughts turn to the explosion, to dirt clogging his mouth and nose. Elektra in his arms.   

               “We’re going to die down here,” she says to him, pushing close.

               “No,” Matt pulls her closer, “This is what living feels like.”  
  
               Kissing her is the last thing he feels before the darkness takes him.

* * *

 Happy reading!


	8. Power Over Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city.  
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> This chapter. Oh, this chapter. No chapter in the history of chapters has ever vexed me so much as this chapter. 
> 
> (That’s not true. I know it’s not true, because similar sentiments make up at least 60% of every author’s note I have ever written. But it’s certainly how it feels right now.) 
> 
> The chapter with Matt presented the challenge of borrowing from canon but ultimately adapting it. This chapter…this chapter felt like completely uncharted territory. And surprises! Lantom showed up, and then Maggie had to make an appearance, and Stick wasn't right in my first draft. He doesn't have a life past season 2, so imagining who he is never having shown up for the events of _Defenders_ (but acknowledging, given where _Village_ picks up, that Elektra experiences some version of that) gave me pause. Trying to figure out how he and Frank make their relationship work was another challenge, and I hope the version that I’ve written makes sense given who he and Frank are. 
> 
> And then, to top it all off, this chapter didn’t get as far as I thought it would, and that, that right there, is the story of me writing stories. 
> 
> Readers, dear Readers, I wouldn’t be here without you. Thank you. Enjoy!

* * *

 

“But I know that time’s gonna take me  
I know that day’s gonna come  
I just want the devil to hate me…  
So we’ll hide away and never tell  
You decide if the darkness knows you well  
That lesson of love, all that it was…  
You’ve got that power over me  
The only one I know, the only one on my mind.”

~Dermott Kennedy, “Power Over Me”

 

* * *

               The decision not to kill Stick comes with the caveat _yet_. He’s an asshole, with a righteousness even more frustrating than the kid’s, but hell if he’s not useful. The morning after their meeting on the rooftop outside St. Agnes, he takes Frank to a penthouse in Midtown. Frank thinks that’s where he’s going to put a bullet in the bastard until they see the kitchen.

               Cupboards are all open. The dishes lie on the floor in pieces. White and crystalline shards gleam in the sunlight. Some were clearly thrown across the room, leaving a jagged path towards the great glass walls of the penthouse and the city beyond. However, most were simply pushed and allowed to fall.

               A series of footsteps are clearly marked in the wreckage, destruction having been further crushed underfoot. Frank follows them, gun at the ready, to a flight of stairs. Halfway up lies a strip of crimson fabric. Frank toes it on his way past, his shoe coming away covered in concrete dust.

               She shed her armour like a snake shedding skin. Dirty pieces of red and black fabric reek of sewer. Frank finds blood on them too, old and dried and crumbling. They line a path to a bathroom. There, the mirror’s broken. More blood spatter lines the walls.  

               “There was a fight,” Frank says.

               “Oh, yeah,” Stick replies, appearing behind him, “with who?”  
  
               His tone of voice is worse than the kid’s, more cutting. An adult amused with a toddler’s observation. Frank regrets not putting a bullet in him. _Yet_. “No body means the only person she could be fighting is herself.” Asshole.

               He pushes open the sliding glass door on the shower. Water’s collected on the ledges of the tub. A shampoo bottle is knocked over. “She trashed the mirror, cleaned herself up, and left.” He closes the shower behind him, turning back to face Stick. The old bastard’s face gives him nothing, and that just makes Frank angrier. “You know all this.”

               “It isn’t what I brought you here to see, no,” Stick says.  
  
               “Don’t fuck with me, old man,” Frank warns him.  
  
               Stick leaves the bathroom, heading down the hall. “Not fucking with you, Frank.”

               Hearing the bastard say his name nearly makes Frank slam the shower door. “We’re wasting time,” he says, purposefully choosing not to follow.  
  
               “Oh, and you weren’t,” Stick chides him, disappearing around the corner. “Sitting around on that rooftop, just waiting for her to walk back into your line of sight.”

               Frank glares at the shadow Stick leaves on the hallway floor. “She got changed and left,” he says, not needing to see any more. “To where?”  

               “If I knew, that’s where I’d be,” Stick says.

               The old man can have his room. Frank heads to another, an office. He finds an open laptop on the desk. Across from it, coffee has dried in a spatter on the wall around a dent of chipped paint where a mug impacted. The remnants of the cup linger on the floor beneath.

               Frank gets that, feels it, far more than he does the broken mirror. He sidesteps Elektra’s mess to go check the computer. Damn thing isn’t password protected, but a quick look at the browsing history shows nothing. Doesn’t mean there’s nothing to find, only that Elektra’s good at hiding.

               Stick appears in the doorway. Frank fills him in before he can start talking: “Got a laptop. Might give an idea about where she’s headed. But she sure as shit ain’t here. Stayed just long enough to get out.” Then, because this is the blind ninja master that taught Red to hear heartbeats and smell the number of blood donors, “You know how long ago that was?”  
  
               “A few weeks now.”  
  
               “About the same time I pulled Red out of the ground.” Frank almost throws the damn computer. She was probably right there, hiding out in the cistern. This could have been over before it even began. “You got any ideas where she might be headed?”  
  
               “Anywhere she wants,” Stick says.

               Frank is barely listening to the old bastard. Can’t tell if Stick is being purposefully obtuse or honest. Instead, Frank puts it into words, out loud, what this apartment means. “You smell that?” He gestures to the stain on the wall. “She’s chucking mugs, trashing the kitchen, busting mirrors. Anybody leaving that shit behind isn’t going some place quietly and laying low.”

               “You got anybody can look over that computer?”

               “Yeah,” Frank replies. “You got any ideas about where to go next?”

               “A few,” Stick says, and walks away.

               Frank rolls his eyes. He holsters his weapon and picks up the laptop. Again, he refuses to follow in Stick’s wake, doubling back down the hall to the bedroom instead. Bunch of clothes are tosses onto the bed. Fancy shit. Nothing designed to blend in. Wherever Elektra went, she went well-dressed.

               He returns to the kitchen. Stick’s already headed for the door, but Frank loops around the island, glass crunching under his boots. She was right there, right there on the beach. A step behind Red, Frank can feel it so why hide? Why stay away? Red was so God damn important to her, but something changed, something more than her fucking mantra of _everybody always leaves Matthew._ Taking a fucking building to the head must have knocked the sense right out of her. Certainly knocked stuff out of Red.

               As if on cue, Frank sees it. He missed it before, scanning the disaster of the kitchen without venturing inside. But there, in the sink, one last glass remains. Still intact. A thin layer of liquid lingering in the bottom. Frank picks it up and sniffs, brow furrowing. Never took Red’s girl for a Scotch drinker.

               Stick grumbles from the door. “We going?”

               “You know about this?”  
  
               “Yeah,” Stick says, “I know. What about it?”  
  
               Frank puts the glass back in the sink. “Nothing.” Stick’s probably dismissed it already, written it off as a bunch of the same hysterics that left the kitchen destroyed and a coffee chucked against the wall. But the scent stays with Frank on their way out of the apartment. It carries him back in the direction of St. Agnes.

               Stick gets out of the car while they’re waiting for a light. He got what he came for, whatever the hell that was. “I’ll see you round, Frank,” he says, slipping into the crowd. By the time Frank turns the corner to follow, the old bastard has disappeared.

* * *

                Frank puts Elektra’s computer in the hands of a guy who knows what the hell to do with it. Then he starts networking. Not knowing what to look for makes it tough to ask people what they remember. Airports, rental agencies, checking police reports for stolen vehicles or assaults or _anything_ : all Frank finds is a city filled with desperate people doing desperate things, trying to get gone. Elektra isn’t an exception; she’s a fucking rule.

               He tries to put her disappearance into context. She crawls out from under a collapsed building, ditches Red, trashes her place, shuffles some money around, and then, what? She could be anywhere in the world right now, as far away from the city as possible.

               Except the Scotch. That glass of Scotch in the sink. The one thing she saved in the whole fucking kitchen. Frank can’t get it out of his head. His eyes keep darting back stateside as he looks at his map, away from the wide world towards the city, Red’s city, the city where she tried to have them die together.

               The statue of Mary shows up in the window of St. Agnes. Frank nearly misses it, he’s got his head so deep in the Elektra bullshit. Back door’s open. He comes up the stairs to find a couple of kids lingering at the door. They take off when Frank arrives, whispering amongst themselves as they run away. Turning the corner, Frank finds Red the lone occupant in the room. A note on the table contains a list, medical supplies mostly, left there when he failed to show up in a timely manner.

               He stuffs the note into his pocket, not planning on staying. Can’t help sparing a glance at the kid though. Red’s bruises are clearing up, his swelling’s gone down considerably. That eye of his might actually be able to open at some point if Red decides to wake up.

               Frank makes a point of pulling his eyes away then. Kid’s gonna wake up, he tells himself again. The mantra’s tired by now. He’s tired. Parking lot’s a gray void of cracked pavement before his eyes, bleak and final, the last destination, or so it seems to Frank, in the collision course Red’s put him on.

               “Sister Maggie waited for you.”  
  
               Father stands in the doorway wearing civvies. Hands in his pockets, trying to look unassuming, like he hasn’t been watching for a while. Frank digs his hands into his pockets in response, bolstering up his shoulders. “Tell her she won’t be waiting longer. I’ll be back.”  
  
               “No need to rush,” Father says with a shrug. “Matthew’s condition hasn’t changed.”  
  
               Frank sighs, knowing exactly where this is headed. “No time for coffee, Father.”  
  
               Lantom gives a small shrug. “Time is all we seem to have lately.”  
  
               God damn it. Any other day, Frank might be able to take that, but he’s got nothing. _Nothing_. Elektra’s in the fucking wind and the fucking blind ninja master is off doing who-the-hell-knows-what and Red is still out fucking cold. “If I have a cup of coffee, will you stop asking?”

               “For now,” Lantom says.

               Frank rolls his eyes. Father understands and leads the way to the church canteen.

* * *

               The coffee is good, better than the shit Frank’s been guzzling in the field. He puts back one cup and doesn’t even have to ask before Father’s pouring him another. Second cup goes down slower than the first. Frank’s thoughts finally settle. That sense of urgency leaves him even though the drive remains. Elektra, out there. Red, here.

               “Search teams have been called off around Midland Circle,” Father says, interrupting the train of thought. “In case you hadn’t heard.”  
  
               Frank had: he doesn’t care. “Search teams were never gonna find shit. Not her or the kid.”  
  
               “Matthew keeps asking for her.”  
  
               “Doesn’t make sense,” Frank replies. He swirls the coffee around in his mug a little before taking another drink. He’s found the words by the time he swallows. “You know what she did when his leg was broken. What she did to get him back. Red tell you everything else? What happened after?” Father doesn’t break his vows, but it’s clear, in the silence, that yes, Red told him everything. “Why do that? Why fight for him then but leave him now? Doesn’t make sense.”  
  
               “To my understanding, she had power then. Certainly resources.”  
  
               “She’s still got that,” Frank says.

               “Not to mention a lack of responsibility. Wasn’t Elektra who broke his leg.”  
  
               Frank points a finger onto the table between them. “I did what needed to be done to get him back on his feet.”  
  
               “You stuck by him.”  
  
               That’s putting it fucking mildly. “He stuck to me, more like. Could hardly get rid of him in the end. Had to send my ass to prison.”

               “Why?”

               “Needed some peace and fu-“

               “The reason I ask,” Lantom says, stopping him, “Is because it seems Elektra has made the same decision: to unstick herself from Matthew.”

               “It’s not the same thing.”  
  
               “How?”  
  
               “He was fine when I left him. He was…”    
  
               The look on Lantom’s face. An expression crosses his features that Frank tries to avoid, but he catches it nevertheless. He scrubs at his head, forcing himself back into the conversation before Lantom gets a chance to elaborate. “It would never’ve been me and him under that building. Never would have gotten that far.”

               “Would you have been able to unstick Matthew down there?”  
  
               Frank drops a fist onto the tabletop. He leans back in his seat, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t’ve given him the choice.”

               “And Matthew? He would’ve given you one?”

               “I wouldn’t’ve let him,” Frank says more forcefully, trying to end the conversation.

               Lantom raises his eyes ceiling-ward in a brief prayer for strength. When he returns, he asks, “What if it had been you and him?”  
  
               “It wasn’t.”  
  
               “But what if it had. Midland Circle collapses. What do you do?”  
  
               The last drink of coffee is cold and bitter. Frank shakes his head. “I don’t run the fuck away.”  
  
               “Language.”

               Frank shakes his head. “I don’t run away.”  
  
               “You got yourself sent to prison.”  
  
               “Because he wouldn’t leave.”  
  
               Father doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, doesn’t do a damn thing but breathe, letting the words hang there in the space between them. Frank reaches for his mug and the cup’s empty. He leans back in his seat to get away, but the priest looming on the other side of the table lets his answer swell to brutal proportions. God damn Lantom. God damn walking into a trap.

               “So what, you think this is what? This is her cutting and running ‘cuz of him? He won’t leave so she does?” Frank asks.  
  
               Lantom raises his eyes skyward again, a prayer for something other than strength this time. Clarity, maybe. Fuck, the priest could use some of that. Frank could use some of that. It ain’t the same, him and Elektra. His arrest and her fucking off after Midland Circle: _ain’t the God damn same_. Father continues, “I find it hard to see what’s happened to Matthew. Knowing that part of my counsel may have even driven him towards it. I can’t imagine having been the person down there with him, the person who may feel even more responsible for Matthew’s current condition.”  
  
               Frank shakes his head. “She’s not like that, Father. She’s…” But that’s not it, certainly not the whole of it. He tries to get the words in order but they keep failing him, interrupted by the sneaking suspicion he knows better, he knows more, it’s just that speaking doesn’t do her justice. He settles on saying, “It doesn’t tell me where she is.”

               “No, that’s true,” Father replies. “But knowing why might help you find where she’s going.”

               The priest wraps a hand around the top of Frank’s mug as he rises from the table. “Another cup?”  
  
               Frank opens his mouth to say no, but he ends up giving a nod.

* * *

               Word on Elektra’s computer comes during the supply run: she moved money to the Cayman’s, made one withdrawal in the city, and that’s it. Won’t Stick be thrilled. Thank God he’s made himself scarce.  

               Father’s words play through Frank’s head but aren’t helpful. Elektra’s motives aren’t pointing him in one direction; they’re pointing him in any direction. Get the hell out of the city, get as far away from Red as possible.

               Then, what? She’s subtle, but she’s pissed, and when she’s pissed, she’s sloppy. She wants the whole world to know how pissed she is, ninja training be damned. And with Red not staying her hand, there’s no limit to what she’ll do, no line she won’t cross. She cut off people’s faces last time. She got Fisk released from prison. She turned the city into a fucking war zone.

               Frank straightens. He tears his eyes from the map, scanning his apartment, his artillery. The bloody, bullet-ridden vest on the back of his chair, spattered with blood from his assault on those assholes the night Stick came into his life.

               He goes to his computer. Picks a city: something big. Gotta be big, bigger than her penthouse kitchen with bigger shit to fuck up than glasses, mugs, and a bathroom mirror. A place that can sustain her sense of vanity, too, can’t forget that. Boston, Philadelphia, Washington: Frank’s instincts tell him they’re wrong before he looks through their news reports to confirm. They’re cities with the usual shit happening, nothing violent or messy.

               His search scans outwards; he comes up with nothing. Eventually runs out of cities that sound right. But he’s onto her. He knows he is. She’s trusting people to think that she’s dead and that Red is too fucked up to sniff her out and that he, Frank, is still wasting away in prison.

               Montreal. Shit. The hell didn’t he think of it first? Frank doesn’t even bother with the news. He calls one of the local dispatches, gets talking to one of the investigators. Feeds them some bullshit about the big, bad Punisher rumoured to have headed their way. “It was awful,” Frank lays it on thick, “Guy took out the Irish, the cartels, the Dogs of Hell. Took out our District Attorney. You got anything like that going on up there?”  
  
               The investigator pauses. Frank thinks he’s about to get told to fuck off, that the badge number he gave is bullshit. But the sigh, Frank knows that sigh. This guy has seen shit. “We still have our district attorney,” the investigator says, “But she isn’t going to have many people left to prosecute if we don’t find this guy.”  
  
               “How long ago did it start?”  
  
               “Couple weeks. It’s brutal. I remember seeing the reports coming out of New York and thanking God that wasn’t happening here and now…Jesus, what the hell would Punisher be doing here?”

               Frank hangs up on him.

               He grabs his duffle bag. Gears up. His mind’s running through the best places to cross the border, where he’s gonna grab a vehicle, how big of a _fuck you_ it’s gonna be when the old bastard comes crawling back here for another fucking field trip when Frank’s found her.

               His phone vibrates on the desk as if on cue. Frank doesn’t answer. Let the asshole figure out for himself where Elektra is. By then it’ll be too late: Frank’ll already have her.

               He grabs his keys, heads down to his vehicle. Gets his shit in the trunk and punches the number for St. Agnes onto his phone.

* * *

                He heads out, hitting a few different clinics for more than a week’s worth of supplies. Unloading it all into St. Agnes’s takes a few trips, and by the time Frank finishes, Maggie is presiding over the lot.

               “I’m leaving town for a bit,” Frank says.

               “This is about the woman.”

               He doesn’t need to say it. “Less you know the better.”  
  
               Maggie scoffs. She begins gathering supplies for the trek out of the kitchen up to the infirmary. “Less I know…I know the Devil’s of Hell’s Kitchen, the Punisher.”

               “So you can’t know where I’m going,” Frank replies. “And you can’t know if it’s for her or for something else.”  
  
               “Because subtlety is such a strong suit for you.”

               “Look, you say you know that kid, but you got another thing coming when he wakes up. He is gonna ask you about Elektra, and he is gonna know if you’re lying to him.”  
  
               “How would he know that?”  
  
               “Gonna have to trust me on this.”

               Maggie scowls at him. Frank makes a point of glancing to the medical supplies he’s brought her, reminding her that he’s got this. “I’m coming back, Sister. Know that.”

               “Can I tell him that?” she asks.

               Frank opens his mouth to respond, closes it. The most he can grant her is a nod before she retreats from the room. “Godspeed, Mr. Castle,” Maggie says.

               “I think God’s gonna sit this one –“  
  
               Maggie closes the door behind her before he can finish.

* * *

 

               Frank has the car door open when a sharp tap rings out from one of the cars in the church lot. He rips his Beretta from the holster on his hip and whips around to find – surprise, surprise – it’s Stick. Old bastard’s trying to be incognito in a loose-fitting jacket, sunglasses, and had. That he’s visibly unarmed doesn’t make him any less dangerous, skulking around in the dark like a worse version of Red _which he very much fucking is_.   

               The gun doesn’t phase him in the slightest. “Enjoy your coffee with the priest this afternoon?” he asks. When Frank doesn’t respond, “Must be nice having all that extra time on your hands.”

               “I found her,” Frank says. _So there, asshole_. “She emptied her accounts. Transferred everything to the Cayman’s. Took some money out here in the city and fucked off to Montreal.”

               “And how the fuck did you figure that out?” Stick asks.

               “Penthouses aren’t the only thing she’s been trashing lately. You want to play another round of twenty questions?”  
               The old bastard folds up his cane as he approaches Frank’s car. Way he handles it, the cane looks more like a weapon than a walking stick. “I’m impressed, Frank.”

               “Oh, fuck off.”  
  
               “Figured it’d be good to have a set of eyes and someone behind the wheel of a car, but I gotta admit, you done good.” Stick pulls on the handle of the passenger door. It’s locked; he probably smelled that it was, but he’s got a point to make. “We going?”  
  
               “There is no _we_. This is all me. Where the hell have you even been anyways?”  
  
               “JFK Airport. Private lounge. Asking lonely, dumbass billionaires if they picked up any beautiful women for a flight lately.”

               “Anyone talk?”

               “Yeah, smartass, they did. Tried to call and tell you –“  
  
               Frank can’t stop his heartrate from climbing. “I’m right. Say it.”  
  
               “Guy was going to Paris,” Stick tells him, and Frank is shaking his head as the old bastard continues, “But they changed their flight plan en route for Montreal. She stole his car after they landed. Cops found it abandoned at a rest stop west of the city. Unsalvageable, according to the owner.”

               “Diversion,” Frank says. “Said they changed the flight plan? She could have had that guy take her anywhere she wanted to go. She chose Montreal.”

               Stick gives the slightest of nods in response. He pulls on the door handle again. “We gonna stand around talking about this all night? Long drive to Montreal. Even longer the way we’re going.”

               Frank still doesn’t lower his gun. He depresses the trigger slightly. That gets the asshole’s attention. “Finding her’s one thing,” Stick reminds him. “Catching her’s another. So are we fighting or driving?” Either sound fine by him. 

               Painfully, Frank releases his hold on the trigger and stands down. He unlocks the door. Stick smiles and lets himself inside.

               Best place for the asshole, really: right in Frank’s sights. 'Cuz he ain't killing him. Not yet. 

* * *

 

Happy reading!

 

 


	9. Wicked Ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city. 
> 
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> At the risk of unintelligible screaming, I will simply say thank you for your patience, dear Readers. I really hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

 

“This night ain’t for the holy man with the holy plan  
For the promise land  
This night we got the evil hand  
And the evil hand gon’ raise the dead.”

~Dorothy, “Wicked Ones”

 

* * *

              Stick abides by a silence that Frank can appreciate. Does the same thing as the kid with the meditation, but he isn’t jarred out of it as easily. He lives there, perfectly measured, a flawless calculation to a fucking complex problem. Sum of a thousand contradictions.

               The rare times he isn’t quiet, he’s an asshole. Fucking know-it-all ninja. Even after all the time with Red, Frank’s unprepared for it. Stick’s ability to navigate in moving vehicles, how he picks up on shit and comments on it. Makes Red’s restraint that much more fucking miraculous by comparison. Stick’s strikes are deliberate, and he doesn’t hold back.

               “How’d the church find you?” Frank asks. Doesn’t really want to, but the silence is giving Stick too many opportunities for sneak attacks. Christ Jesus, Frank thought he was having déjà vu at St. Agnes’s with Sister Maggie and Father showing off where Red got the idea to weaponize guilt, but sitting next to Stick, the connections are even fucking clearer. Give Red quiet, give him dark, and it’s all he needs to start a fight.

               Stick doesn’t answer. Frank presses: “What the hell would get a nun, a woman of God, to call up an asshole like you to help raise a kid?”

               “I don’t know what the hell would get a nun to do anything,” Stick says.

               “So how’d she find you?”  
  
               “She didn’t. Probably thought she did.”  
  
               Frank scoffs. “You go around to orphanages recruiting kids for war.”  
  
               “I didn’t have to recruit Matt Murdock to do anything,” Stick says.

               The name gets Frank’s grip on the steering wheel to tighten. And the way Stick says it, the way he knows exactly what Frank knows. It just pisses Frank off more: that it’s true, that he gave a reaction to the old man, that Red wouldn’t need any pushing to go off the ledge.

               “Just ‘cuz a kid enlists, doesn’t mean you take ‘im,” Frank says.

               “Oh, yeah? What the fuck else do you let him do?” Stick doesn’t give him a chance to answer that. “Matthew told you about me, but he must not have mentioned how I found him.”  
  
               “How’s that?”  
  
               “Writhing on a bed. Hands over his ears. No handle on himself, on his senses. I was a last resort for the sisters. They were going to hand him over to some institution if he didn’t get his shit together.”  
  
               “And you helped him do that.”  
  
               “Damn right I did.”  
  
               “Everything he is, he owes to you.”

               Stick gives a sigh that’s more of a groan. He isn’t taking that bait. “I taught him to get control of himself.”

               “Taught him to kill.”  
  
               “I wish. Would have saved him and the world a whole lot of trouble if I did.”

               “Yeah, teaching kids to kill. Great idea. Done really well for Elektra.”  
  
               “Elektra’s different.”  
  
               “Ain’t that the truth.”  
  
               “She was born for this. If I didn’t take her, someone else would have. Someone worse.”  
  
               “They did. The Hand, right?”

               Stick gives a slight nod. He tilts his head away from Frank, background whizzing past him outside the windows. “Elektra would have ended up this way with or without me. Probably would have ended up a lot worse if I hadn’t been there.”

               Frank doesn’t argue, not at first. The road passes underneath the car, carrying them closer and closer to her, to the place where, if Red dying under buildings has always been an inevitability, they were always meant to be. Elektra didn’t need the old man to wreak havoc, to wage war.

               But, “This isn’t the Hand,” Frank notes. “Ninja-bastards died in a building collapse, and she skipped town to kill drug dealers and murderers and human traffickers and other pieces of shit that the police don’t bring down. Is this the kind of shit she does with you or without you?”

               “Without me, asshole.” Stick shifts in his seat, the black of his sunglasses turned on Frank suddenly. “What about you? How’d the church find you? What the hell would get a nun, a woman of God, to call up some asshole like you for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen?”

               “Devil of Hell’s Kitchen found me.”  
  
               Stick scoffs. “Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was thirty stories underground when you decided to break your ass out of prison.”  
  
               “Church didn’t call me then, did they.”

               “You called them.”

               “Devil called them,” Frank says.

               “Did the Devil call you?”  
  
               Frank doesn’t answer that. Fucking trap, that’s what that is. Silence seems like as good an answer as any, given that Stick is going to draw whatever fucking conclusion he wants.

               Case in point: “He didn’t, did he.”  
  
               “He didn’t have to.”  
  
               But that’s a trap too. “When the Devil needs you, you go.”  
  
               “Didn’t see anyone else on the beach searching for him.”

               “You broke out of prison for him.”  
  
               “Where were you?” Frank demands. He’s so sick of everybody making a big fucking deal about him breaking out of prison. People break out of Super Max all the fucking time for all sorts of stupid reasons. “You sitting here bitching at me, but where the fuck were you, old man, when two of your child soldiers ended up crushed under a building? When the girl you recruited and trained ended up leading your enemy’s army? And don’t give me this ‘she would have always ended up there’ shit. How’d she get to be the leader of the Hand?”  
  
               “Same way she got to be killing drug dealers in Montreal,” Stick says.

               “Murdock.”  
  
               Stick’s turn to say nothing. He turns back to the road.

               “How’d they meet?” Frank asks. “Elektra and Murdock? You train them together?”  
  
               “Matthew needed someone to remind him who he was,” Stick replies.

               “When was this?”  
  
               “College.”  
  
               Frank puts the pieces together. “You were recruiting him. Again.”  
  
               “Running recon.”

               “Devil came calling for you, old man?”  
  
               Stick sidesteps that completely in an admission of culpability so loud it fills the vehicle. “Certainly called to Elektra.”  
  
               “Not anymore,” Frank almost says, but then he remembers why they’re going to Montreal, and he thinks better of it. Elektra’s still hearing the Devil’s call.

* * *

                Border crossing involves ditching the car and hiking the last few miles through cover of wilderness and nightfall. Frank hauls his duffel over his shoulder; Stick carries his pack along with a case undoubtedly carrying his sword. He has a cane folded in his hand as a weapon.

               Pissed off as Frank is to be sharing the journey, watching the old man is the best way to know him. Red tries to hide it, tries to buck against it because it’s Red: doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. This is who he comes from. This is the man who taught him to track heartbeats, who taught him to use his surroundings. Who tried to teach him to kill, and would have, too, if Red was just a little less stubborn, a little less righteous, a little less good.

               They’ve got nothing but woods around them. No sounds of border patrol this far into the wilderness.

               “What happened between you and Matthew?” Stick asks suddenly.

               Frank glares at the old man, the quiet being just fine between them. He casts a glance through the trees for border guards, wondering if this question is a trap for more than obvious reasons. “Nobody’s around for miles,” Stick says, still walking. “What happened between you and Matthew?”

               “What do you think?” Frank counters.

               “That you are the last person on earth who would be here right now,” Stick says, “But here you are.”  
  
               Frank keeps his damn mouth shut. He watches through the dark as Stick places his folded cane against the trunk of a tree and steps through the brush. Navigation comes faster to him than Red. He doesn’t have to toe for roots or trees. Red said his radar work largely through sound and vibrations. Frank puts his foot down extra hard on some branches, getting the old man to tilt his head ever-so-slightly when the wood cracks.

               “How many kids have you trained?” Frank asks.

               “Not enough,” Stick says. And of all the answers he could have given, it’s the one that pisses Frank off the most. “Don’t change the subject.”

               “Sounds like you picked the right ones,” Frank says, staying his fucking course. “Hand’s gone now. Only took two child soldiers to do that.”

               “War’s never over, Frank. You know this: you’re a soldier. Just because one army gets crushed under a building doesn’t mean there isn’t another one to take its place. The Hand is a limb. Killing them is amputation, not annihilation.”

               “This is recruitment, then? Bring Elektra back into the fold?” Frank relishes the silence that follows from the old man. “You couldn’t get the kid back in college.”

               “Elektra isn’t Matthew,” Stick says, enunciating every name so that he isn’t misunderstood. “I said she would have ended up this way with or without me, and I meant it. There’s a reason the Hand wanted her. They brought her back from the dead just to get her.” He takes a few more steps, his footsteps as light as Frank’s are heavy. “What about you? You’re looking for a war.”  
  
               “Not interested,” Frank says, not believing for one second the old bastard is actually giving him a sales pitch.

               “Bullshit you’re not interested.”  
  
               “Don’t need you for war, old man. You said it yourself: Hand is a limb. Still a body where it came from.” 

               “That how you came to know Matthew? Through war?”

               “Didn’t come and recruit him from an orphanage, that’s for sure.”

               Stick takes that in stride. “He must have given you hell.”  
  
               “Tried to.”

               “But.”  
  
               “But nothing. It didn’t work. All those speeches about second chances and the sanctity of life. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.”

               “Why find him then?”

               Frank rolls his eyes. Christ, not this shit. “I knew where to look.”  
  
               “Why would you want to?” Stick asks. “All those speeches. He fought you. He must have.”  
  
               “Every chance he got.”  
  
               Stick gives a small laugh, bitter and cold as he is. “So leave him. I did.”

               “You came back.”

               “Not to stick around.” 

               “Not sticking around either.”

               “Could have fooled me.”

               Frank clams up. Stops dead for a minute. He’s stuck around ‘cuz there’s shit to do, that’s all. When the job’s done, that’s when he leaves, and there is no one who understands that more than the old fucking man, but there’s no one looking to make a bigger point about all this that the _old fucking man_.

               He walks and tries to remember what Red said. Shit, it’s so long ago now. The Bronx. The fire escape. “Why’d you leave in the first place?” Frank asks.

               “Already told you: kid wouldn’t kill.”  
  
               “So you just dropped him? All that hard work, all that potential. You up and leave?”

               “Yeah,” Stick says, “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”  
  
               “I didn’t train the kid.”

               “His training ended. There wasn’t anything else I could teach him.”

               Frank isn’t surprised that’s the reason. “You wanted him to kill.”  
  
               “I wanted him to do what’s necessary.”

               The words almost make Frank stop in his tracks again. He forces himself to keep walking.

* * *

                The town they find is so small. Lights are out in the houses. Frank and Stick navigate their way down the streets to a diner. Car’s waiting in the lot just as Frank’s guy said it would, keys hidden under the fuel door. No cops or border patrol in sight.

               Frank gets into the driver’s seat; Stick gets into the passenger seat. On the drive to Montreal, neither of them say a word. Frank isn’t even thinking in language at that point. He’s all visuals, certainties. They’re going to be in the city and they’re going to find her, and then he can be fucking done with the old man. Finish what they started back in the basement of the church properly this time.

               They come at the city from the east, passing over the Saint Lawrence and Nuns’ Island. Frank grips the wheel extra tightly, his thoughts wandering momentarily back to St. Agnes. To Maggie. He doesn’t want her here with him, and Jesus, she doesn’t want to be there either. Even in his thoughts, she’s pissed. And Frank finds he doesn’t blame her for being that way, understands it even, lets her have that. What he’s doing has to be done, and there ain’t nobody else to do it. And whatever else it does, it’ll make Red fucking easier to deal with when he wakes his ass up.

               Well, that’s not true. But it’s one less thing to think about when it comes to Red, and that’s gotta stand for something.

* * *

                Frank sets up shop in what looks like an old Cathedral. Probably isn’t: everything just looks church-y in his part of the city. There’s a stained glass window on the second floor that looks over the street, one angry, crimson eye searching the city. Sun comes through it and paints the whole interior the colour of blood.

               Stick stays long enough to mark the location. His leaving brings some relief; Frank is happy he’s gone even if the old bastard will turn up again like a mangy fucking cat. That he might do it with Elektra in tow just to get one up pissed Frank off to no end. He stops long enough to arm the place, then he gets to work.

               Language is less of a problem than expected, thank Christ. Some people Frank meets only have Quebecois slang mastered; others slip easily between French and English, and they don’t give Frank any shit for only knowing the latter. The ones that do learn pretty quickly to go fuck themselves. Frank drops them like bad habits, keeps the ones that know their shit and gets himself hooked up with a police scanner and a CI looking to make some extra cash for intel.

               Her crime scenes are brutal. Mass graves. Frank scores the crime scene photos by posing as the NYPD again, and he tacks them up on the wall of the safehouse like they’re supposed to show him the way. But then the old man shows up and berates him some, and Frank realizes that they both got nothing. Elektra’s in the wind. Her last massacre predates their arrival in the city. The only thing holding Frank to the city is that hunch that she wouldn’t go much further. That Stick sticks around only confirms his hunch. She’s out there.

               Frank doesn’t wait for the cops to find the next one. He starts doing his own rounds, busting down doors and stalking through alleyways, catching people doing dumb, dirty shit. He asks about her and gets no answers, only people running for their fucking lives especially when they realize he’s not the one who put their buddies in the ground.

               At first, he cleans up after himself. She can’t have a reason to skip town, not now. But after a few days with nothing but silence on her end, Frank starts getting bold. He sets a fire, burns down a building, watches long enough to see the shitbags inside go up in flames. He scans the rooftops, waiting for a shadow. Waiting for her to show up behind him, put a weapon to his head. Waiting to see her skip town.

               He goes back to the safehouse disappointed. He’s even more disappointed to see Stick waiting for him. Hands on his knees, no sunglasses, looking like an older version of the kid in the dark.

               “Just what in the fuck do you think you’re doing,” he says.

               Frank doesn’t respond. There’s nothing to say. He grabs his phone, grabs a towel, and storms upstairs. Red light through the stained-glass window gives the room a glow of embers. Frank keeps climbing till he comes out onto the roof into the cold.

               He wipes the blood and ash off his face and hands. Montreal sits lower to the ground than New York, so there’s no starlight or moonlight or anything. Sky’s a fucking blank slate, city’s peppered with light, and there, in the distance, his blaze pierces through the darkness like a supernova. Frank looks to his phone then: no calls, no texts, no nothing. Could pitch the fucking thing off the roof, but instead, he shoves it into his pocket and stands, the sound of the city filling his ears. All of it faint and meaningless. There are screams out there he can’t hear. Gunfire muffled by concrete walls, blows from a fight that will never get reported. And Elektra is, fuck, she’s probably sitting pretty watching a building go up in flames in her rear-view mirror.

               Or will she? Frank looks at the fire, really looks at it, and yeah, it might prompt her to go. But being found out never got her to retreat before. Really isn’t gonna get her to turn tail now that she’s channeling the fucking Devil.

               Frank stomps back downstairs. He reloads. To the old man: “Get your shit. We’re going.”  
  
               “Oh, yeah?” Stick says. “Where? Why?”  
  
               “We’re smoking her out,” Frank says.  
  
               “She’s on her way to the airport right now ready to skip town.”  
  
               “No. She’s looking at that building and playing eenie-meenie-miney-mo with the rest of the city thinking where she’s gonna hit next. And you know it. You fucking know it. You trained her ass.”  
               “I trained her better than that.”  
  
               “Yeah, just like you trained Red. That why they both ended up in Midland Circle together? ‘Cuz of your training?” Frank cocks his gun, shoves it into the holster. Picks up another, does the same. He grabs his coat. “I’m right. You know I am. And I will not say it again. So what’s it gonna be, old man?”

               Stick grips the weapon lying across his lap. Seems like he’s made himself a promise about Frank too. It’s written all over his fucking face. But it’s a promise he isn’t ready to keep.

               Yet.

* * *

                They make the rounds. Shutting the fuck up seems like the old man’s strongest suit, and Frank’s gotta admit, it’s not a bad look on him. Gonna miss that quiet when they get done what needs doing.

               Frank picks out her likely targets based on the local PD’s reports. Got a bunch of places by the river. Stick and Frank clear through them. The old man grumbles at the first stop when he insists Elektra isn’t there, bitching that Frank’s plan is fucking stupid, but he gets into the spirit of things pretty quick. Hard not to for an asshole like Stick. Blood’s blood, and there ain’t no Red around to give either of them grief.

               Second stop, they really hit their stride. Stick hops out of the car before Frank parks, and Frank doesn’t see him again until the ground is littered with bodies and blood. Even then, the old man’s little more than a ghost. White hair and eyes under the glowing filament of a broken bulb, then vanished again, magically appearing in the passenger seat by the time Frank gets the car going.

               They hit a warehouse last. Stick doesn’t bother getting out of the car. He sits there as Frank hops out, pulls the pin on a grenade, chucks it through the lone window. Explosion rocks through the concrete. A wall cracks. Gunfire starts inside. Frank tosses another grenade, and by the time he looks back, the old man is gone. He’s cutting people to pieces as they race out the door.

               Frank takes a few of his own as he works to get the building burning. He leaves the incendiaries to do their job and gets his ass back in the car, pulling around past the front of the building to get the hell out of there. Something lands on the top of his car. Passenger door opens. The old man drops into the seat and slams the door shut behind him. All without Frank lowering his speed once.

               The city burns behind them.

* * *

 

               Police scanner is going wild when they get back. Fucking Punisher, at it again, but this time he’s stepped up to arson. Good lesson in French cursing coming in over the radio if Frank cared to listen, but he’s only got ears for one person, and she ain’t blowing shit up yet.

               Sirens are blaring across the city. Barricades are going up and streets are closing down and people are being asked to stay inside their homes and that last bit’s just speculation. Just Frank’s brain running through procedures and protocols while the rest of him paces, too keyed up to sit his ass down. He barely hears the old man chiding him – “And now we wait?” Usually when he walks away from shit like this, his head goes quiet for a while. He gets a fucking break. But his head is buzzing. Ears ringing from explosions. He needs to move.

               He climbs the stairs. That unblinking red eye stares down at him, crawling over his skin as he thunders up the steps, double time, to the roof. They’ve got blazes through the city. The riverfront is alight. Without skyscrapers, Frank gets a full, unimpeded view of the shit he’s fucked up. They threw down the gauntlet. She’s gonna throw it right back in their face, so where the fuck is she? Where?

               Fuck. He knows exactly where she is.

               Frank whips around. A shadow grabs him by the wrist, slams the ball of her hand into his elbow. Frank knocks his head forward into hers, striking her cheek. Does nothing to stop what comes next: the flurry of blows that knock the gun out of his hand and land them in a knot on the rooftop, Elektra wrapped around him so badly he’s going to have to break an arm to get loose.

               Her mouth comes to his ear, the smile so wild he can feel the corner of her lips against his skin. “You did all this for me? I’m flattered.”

               Frank manages to get a leg under him, knock himself against her. Elektra dances away from him, twirling until she has her feet against the rooftop ledge, the city presented behind her like the finale in a magic trick.

               She beams at him, holding up her phone. Her finger goes to the Send button.

               Frank charges at her but he’s too late. The explosion rips through the safehouse beneath them, and the last thing he sees is her smile before the rooftop gives way under his feet and they fall into the fire.   

* * *

 

Happy reading!


	10. I Fell In Love With The Devil Pt. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city. 
> 
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> My efforts to write this chapters were thwarted by travel, a wedding, visiting in-laws, major investments and some serious adulting. Like holy hell. 
> 
> I will not say that the next chapter is going to come quickly. I want it to, because I have waited to write as freely and as easily as I did when I first started this fic, but frankly, I say I’m gonna write and I don’t. Maybe if I tell you all that it will take me a while, I will be pleasantly surprised with my progress! Or you’ll be prepared for the wait. One of the two. 
> 
> Readers, Dear Readers, I can’t thank you enough for your support. Thank you.

* * *

“Got me playing with fire  
Baby, hand me the lighter  
Tastes just like danger  
Chaotic anger...  
I fell in love with the Devil  
And now I’m in trouble.”

~Avril Lavigne, “I Fell in Love With the Devil

* * *

 

               Frank comes back to himself already on his feet. His ears are a steady, piercing ring. His face is thick with blood, and thank God for that, with all the smoke filling his vision. Blood’s coating his throat, letting him breathe.

               Bad thing that though, breathing. Frank doubles over in a coughing fit, ribs tightening in protest. He stumbles through the next couple steps to where the smoke is the thickest and plunges into the outdoors.

               He hits the ground on all fours, hacking blood and smoke and pain. His legs don’t stop righting themselves beneath him. He’s standing before he realizes, searching for a fight because one’s coming. Ends up catching Elektra stalking out of the flames, weapons drawn and at her sides. Her mouth is moving, but the words are lost to Frank. He tries to find his weapon only to realize it got lost on the roof. The gun in his ankle holster is too far for him to reach before Elektra has him by the shirt and shoves him up against the car.

               She puts him into the place where the window used to be. Jagged edges of glass jab into Frank’s back. He bucks away, straight into the point of Elektra’s sai. He swats her away. She grabs him by the throat and smiles as she chokes him. “Oh, it’s so good to see you, Frank,” she says in a tone that he can finally hear. “Nice work on the prison escape. Pity dying didn’t take.”

               “I’m not the only one it didn’t take,” Frank says.

               Elektra gives a small shrug. “True, but I’m here not for lack of trying.”  
  
               “Not you.”

               Her fingers don’t loosen on his neck, but Frank feels her bone shake inside her arm, her skeleton looking for a way out of her skin before he can say, “The Devil’s alive.” And, because Frank wants her the hell off him, “He’s askin’ for you.”  
  
               Fighting gives him the chance to disarm her. One of her sais hits the ground; the other, Frank catches before it can pierce his shoulder. He wraps his fingers over the fist she’s making around the prongs and the handle, and he pushes back, knowing he’s won, knowing he’s got her. Red’s a spark to her powder keg. Elektra burns bright and hot, but she’ll burn fast then vanish.

               She doesn’t get the chance. A blade swings out of the darkness, and Elektra’s remaining sai disappears, clattering against the pavement. Frank shoves at her, getting her the hell out of the way, before the old bastard Stick comes at them, still smoldering from catching the blast.

               He looks like absolute hell, the old man does. Blood draining out of a wound on his face, out of his nose, his ears. Jesus fucking Christ though, he’s just more dangerous now. No reason for pretense, for stealth. It’s him and her, Stick and Elektra, rising out of the ashes of a collapsed building with nothing left to lose.

               Stick goes at Elektra like the fucking devil himself. But he ain’t the Devil, and Frank is only too pleased to have a go at the old bastard in that moment. To have a reason. They’ve been dancing around this since the beginning. Laying hands on Stick feels right. Taking a slash on the arm from the katana is a fair trade for getting a couple hits on the old man’s smug face. Stick booting him in the knees doesn’t seem to hurt either. Frank uses that to duck, grab the weapon out of his ankle holster, take aim. One batch, two batch, penny and – fuck. Elektra spirals round and puts herself in his crosshairs, flashing Frank an expression like a mother scolding a child. Stick’s hers, all hers.

               She’s a good match for him. The old bastard’s fast; she’s faster. The old bastard’s mean; she’s meaner. Elektra walks through his blows. She dances past them.

               Frank gets a shot off just in time for Elektra to snap the katana out of Stick’s hand. She swings the blade around several times, an elaborate gesture to get used to the weight.

               Frank shoots the katana out of her hand. His turn to shoot a fucking look at her smug ass, because the old man is his. This is the yet they were waiting for.

               Elektra runs at him. Frank takes aim around her, Stick’s face where it belongs in his crosshairs. “One batch, two batch,” Frank says, wondering why the old fuck is just standing there. What’s he hearing that keeps him on the spot when he knows what’s coming. Not Elektra, who, even at full tilt, isn’t clearing the distance she needs to stop this.

               Tires screeching across the pavement. Engines whirring. Red and blue lights hit Frank’s periphery, and the whole fight stops though the three of them remain in motion. Elektra darts for an alley, gathering her weapons as she goes. Stick heads her off, katana back in hand, and she fucking lets him. Fucking wants the old man to follow her into the night so she can finish what the bomb started.

               Frank stays right with them, and they’re all of them gone by the time emergency services arrive.  

* * *

                Elektra feigns escape before popping out of fucking nowhere before launching herself at the old man.

               Frank thrusts himself into the melee, letting the vest do its job by catching their blades as he wrangles with them. He tosses Elektra aside, leaves the old man wide open, but before he can get off a shot, she stabs him straight through his gun hand. He whips around, but she kicks him aside. When Frank tries to get up, he gets a slash across the neck for his trouble from the old man.

               Elektra throws her sai; Stick slashes it out of the air. She comes at him with the other one, but then the katana goes back to Frank, and she stops dead in her tracks. Blood spatters across the rooftop beneath him, drains down his chest. Stick grabs one of his hands and shoves it into the wound.

               Jesus Christ, the old bastard’s fucking surgical: one hand on his neck seems to be enough to keep Frank alive and conscious, but if he goes back into the fight, he’s bleeding out on the rooftop.  

               “Better watch that heartbeat of yours, Frank,” Stick reminds him. Fucker sounds almost cheerful as he does. “Better watch yours too, Elektra.”

               Elektra stares at him. At Frank. “Are you here to kill me?”

               “I told you-“ he rasps.  

               “Not you.” Elektra finally sets her sights on Stick. Old bastard’s moved out of Frank’s reach but Frank’s not out of the katana’s. “You.”  
  
               Stick stands with a terrifying kind of ease for a man bleeding out of every orifice on his head. He’s still poised for murder despite his calm. “You’re trying to kill me.”    
  
               Elektra laughs. “You couldn’t sense them, could you?” Her eyes flit to Frank for just a second, to the blood draining down his chest, before returning to the blood on Stick’s face. “You really shouldn’t have come here, Stick. Not that I’m disappointed. I’ve waited a long time for this.”  
  
               “Couldn’t’ve been that much of a priority for you,” Stick points out. “You were the leader of the Hand. You could have tracked me down months ago, killed me anytime you wanted, and made quicker, better work of it than that hack job with explosives.”

               “Oh, you’d’ve loved that, wouldn’t you? Have it all be about you again, Stick.”

               “What the hell were you doing? Disfiguring thugs and starting prison riots –“  
  
               “I was doing what I wanted! Exactly what I’m doing right now!”

               “Are you?” Stick asks. “Killing drug dealers and human traffickers. Defending this asshole.” The katana gets so close to Frank he can hear the blade sing. He goes to knock it aside. His hands are shaking; his vision’s fizzling out to gray. Stick scoffs. “This what you want to do? Who you want to be? Lapdog of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen?”

               Frank fucking seethes. He searches for his gun. Finds it lying a couple feet away, close to where Elektra’s toeing the ground, ready to pounce. He draws a breath to mask his heart and takes to flitting his gaze towards the weapon, hoping she’ll figure it out.

               Elektra isn’t paying attention to him: she’s looking at Stick. “Why are you here?”

               “I’m here to give you the choice. Building’s not going to do it for you. Explosives, gunshots,” he gestures slightly in Frank’s direction – for his benefit or Elektra’s, Frank doesn’t know. “The Hand explain what they did? How it works?”  
  
               “I know enough.”  
  
               “So you know that this ends one of two ways for you.”  
  
               “You’re asking me if I want to die?”

               “I’m asking _how_ you want to die.”

               Elektra smirks. “I could ask you the same question.”  
  
               She kicks Frank’s gun to him. Stick’s katana swings through the air towards him. Elektra throws her remaining sai. The old bastard spins out of the way, giving Frank the ability to dodge, to grab his weapon, to fire. The bullets fly into the empty air as a shadow vanishes over the side of the building into the night.

               Frank falls back onto the rooftop with a wet slap. HIs hand falls away from his neck, and he can hear his blood draining onto the roof. Can imagine it, jet and slick and glossy with starlight from above. He’s on the verge of passing out when Elektra’s fingers dig into him. Frank springs back inside himself, his heart leaping into his throat with one last burst of energy before darkness overtakes him.

               Elektra grabs the hand of his that she stabbed. Frank yells and takes a swing at her, and that’s the last thing he remembers.

* * *

 

               He never breathes this fast, but here he is, pumping air like an engine racing down the track. On a collision course with a basement ceiling of low-hanging duct work, vents, and pipes, none of which have seen use in decades.

               A bag of blood hangs to his left. Improvised, by the looks of things. There are still bloody fingerprints on the outside, a scrawl of a name on masking tape. Frank can’t make it out. Light’s getting to his eyes, blurring up his vision. He tries to reach a hand up to his face, but his wrist catches, both of them do, on a restraint. Same kind of shit holds his ankles in place. Only thing Frank can move is his head, but even that pulls. The stitches on his neck are barely holding him together with the way he’s breathing. He’s liable to bust right open if he tries to lift himself up.

               He manages to quiet his breathing long enough to hear voices. Two of them. Hushed whispers. _En Français_. Frank rolls his eyes and they damn near stay there in the back of his head, but he can’t stop himself from trying, again, to break the cuffs on his arms.

               Conversation ends. Door opens, shuts again, locks. Footsteps draw near the bed. Frank knows exactly who he’s gonna fucking see, but it’s still a disappointment when Elektra appears at the base of his vision.

               “Good morning,” she says pleasantly.

               He tears at the straps again.

               “Go easy on yourself, Frank. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”  
  
               She sits herself down on the edge of the bed between Frank’s outstretched fingers and his restrained leg, exactly where she wants to be and exactly where Frank can’t reach her. The bed won’t give, not as quickly as his neck, and Frank has to stop. Shit’s catching up with him: explosion, fight with Stick, the fucking escape from Super Max. He has to stop. But he won’t.

               Elektra speaks pleasantly throughout, all the more reason for him to keep going. “You’re safe,” she tells him. “Doctor’s just patched you up. She seems to think you’ll make it.” Elektra leans over him suddenly, her hand towards his face. Frank bites at her, thrashes away from her, his only defence (God damn her), and the way her expression refuses to change only makes him try again. She manages to get him, tucking her fingers under his chin to note, “Temperature’s up a bit. Are you thirsty?”  
  
               The smile on her is thinly contained. Thank fucking Christ it doesn’t stick around. Elektra slinks back to her sitting position. “You’re lucky to be alive,” she says. “Stick should have killed you. Must have impressed him. Guess he didn’t know about your little stash of explosives.”  
  
               “They worked,” Frank says, wishing he’d been the one to use them. “Old bastard didn’t sense ‘em.”  
  
               “Neither did you,” Elektra replies coolly, that ghost of a smile returning to her face. “Were you going to kill him?”  
  
               “Yes.”  
  
               “When?”

               “Right time.”

               “After you found me.”

               Frank’s still gonna fucking do it, too. No hesitations, no waiting. The second he gets the chance, he’s going to kill the old bastard.

               “How did you find each other?” Elektra asks.

               Frank isn’t talking anymore. “Undo these cuffs.”  

               “Were you one of my options, Frank? Death by Stick or death by you?”  
  
               “You let me off this fucking bed or I swear to God –“  
  
               “You’ll what? You have nothing, Frank. Those rails are sautered and the straps are leather. You nearly bled to death. You’re not going anywhere. So,” she leans down towards him, tempting his fists and his temper, playing chicken with his sutures and his level of awareness and _fucking winning_ , _God damn her_ , “Are you one of my choices?”

               “Yes,” Frank snaps, “but you didn’t need the old man to come tell you that.”

               Elektra flashes him a smile. “So you were here with him but not because of him.”  
  
               “I told you: Red’s alive. He’s asking for you.”

               She leans back, satisfied. “You’re here for Matthew.”  
  
               “Jesus fucking…” it’s not like that. Why does everyone keep saying that? “You brought a building down on top of him and then up and left-“  
  
               “I told him to leave.”  
  
               Frank scoffs. “Red’s not just gonna leave.”  
  
               “You don’t think I know that? I fought him! I hurt him! And still, he stayed!” Elektra stops herself. A flurry of emotions cross over her normally cold, placid face. “I did everything I could to get him out of there. He did everything to try and get me out of there. And when none of that worked, we braced ourselves for impact. And do you know what he said to me? Right at the end? ‘This is what living feels like.’”

               Frank wants to be pissed at her, but, “Fuck, of course he did.”

               “I came back to ask him for help. The Hand were on the verge. I’d hunted them almost to extinction. I didn’t expect–“

               “That he’d get a building dropped on him?”

               Anger overtakes her. “Did you?”

               “No,” Frank says, “but I didn’t know better.”  
  
               Elektra purses her lips. Her eyes smolder. “I thought we would die together.”  
  
               “You thought wrong.”  
  
               “The building should have killed us both.”  
  
               “Should’ve killed at least one of you. How are you still here? He’s lain up, beaten to shit; you’re here blowing up buildings.”  
  
               “The Hand.” Elektra sighs. “However they brought me back the first time. Seems it works every time.”  
  
               “Did you know?”

               “I didn’t know anything until I woke up in the dark. Trapped but uninjured. And Matthew…he was alive.” She crosses her arms across her chest and leans her head back, eyes directed into the unfinished ceiling. “How the hell was he alive? How the hell is he still alive?”

               “He’s Red,” Frank says. That should sum it up for her.

               Her head lowers, hanging in defeat for a long moment before she resumes looking at Frank. He sees it in her eyes before she says it. Doesn’t give him any time to think of a rebuttal. “I’m not going back.”  
  
               Frank tugs on his bonds, less to break free from them than bust out of his own skin. He’s got a nest of something writhing over his bones. “He’s asking for you.”  
  
               “Yes.”  
  
               “You brought a building down on him.”  
  
               “I’ve done worse than that,” she replies.  

               “He’s alive.”   
  
               “For now. But how long until the next battle? How long until the next building?”

               “I can’t believe this.” Frank tears at the straps holding him down. “You hear what’s coming out of your mouth right now?”

               “I told him to go; he wouldn’t. I fought him; he stayed. He should be dead; he’s asking for me.”

               “He’s asking for you! Christ, he’s digging for you in his fucking dreams! And when he wakes up –“  
  
               “You tell him I’m dead.”  
  
               “I could bring him your dead fucking body and he wouldn’t fucking believe it.”

               “All the more reason,” Elektra says, trying to end the conversation, “For me to stay away.” And then, as Frank is telling her exactly what he thinks about that, “You should too.”  
  
               Now, he really wants to break the bed. His stitches tug, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t fucking care. Let them break. Let him bleed the fuck out. Let him bust this fucking bed apart and tear this whole fucking city down on top of them. “You almost got him killed!”  

               “So did you.” Elektra shrugs, stepping away from the bed. She picks up a hypodermic, stabs it into one of the vials, and loads it with an obscene amount of liquid. Frank starts rubbing his forearm against the mattress and rail to dislodge the IV. “So does everybody. Stick? Me? You? His sweet little secretary? His father? There is no one in Matthew’s life who hasn’t almost gotten him killed. Someone needs to have the good sense to get out before they actually go through with it.”

               “He isn’t going to stop looking!” Frank says, fighting.

               Elektra catches him, holding his arm steady with ease. He doesn’t let up pulling on his right arm. The rail on the bed starts to give, galvanizing him. Compelling him to keep going, that he has her, she is right fucking here and he is not going back to Red empty-fucking handed.

               She puts the needle into port. “And what will that mean for you, Frank?”

               “I won’t stop looking,” he promises.  
  
               “For Matthew.”

               Why the fuck do they all say it like that? “For me.”  
  
               Elektra depresses the plunger. Frank’s arm burns, and he talks over it, talks through it. Lets her know what she’s in for. “Old man was giving you a choice. Now I am too. You stay here, you’ve made it, and the next time we see each other –“  
  
               “We won’t,” Elektra says. She turns on a heel and walks away from him, waving over her shoulder. “Rest well, Frank.”  
  
               “You can’t outrun me forever!”  
  
               She hits the lights. The whole basement plunges into darkness. Frank can hear her open a heavy metal door, one that slams and locks behind her, footsteps fading up a flight of stairs and vanishing into the blackness.

               He sets his shoulders and starts pulling as hard as he can.

               The darkness takes him.

* * *

                Rain spits across Frank’s face and beads up across his scalp, but it still takes him for-fucking-ever to wake the hell up. He gets his eyes open to a gray, rainy day with a view of the sidewalk at shoe-level. Pedestrians barely passing a glance on him on their way to work except to toss coins in the crumpled coffee cup beside him.

               Frank sits up. Fights through the dizziness and the nausea and the pain with a face-full of downpour. The jacket he’s wearing smells like death and is soaked through, but the pockets are heavy with parting gifts: a passport, his cell phone. Wanted poster, printed from the RCMP's website, for the Punisher; Frank crumples that shit up. Little bit of cash in the coffee cup. Even a bottle of antibiotics, because Elektra’s such a fucking bleeding heart.

               She’s so fucking confident; it burns, that. Frank’s still got his contacts in the city. He’ll find her and he’ll find the old man, and he doesn’t care what fucking order, but they’ve got shit to settle and Frank is gonna settle it.

               One look at his phone though. That’s all it takes: one look. He sees what Elektra sees, and he burns harder. Rain can’t compete. One missed call, one voice mail to match. Frank dials his inbox and keys in his password, bandaged hand stinging where Elektra stabbed him. He knows where this is going, almost doesn’t listen to it as a result.

               One message, two words: “He’s awake.”

               Frank hangs up. He shoves the phone back in the jacket pocket, the rain falling steadily around him, and he burns. 

* * *

 

Happy reading!


	11. Sky Full Of Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city. 
> 
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> Chapters that make direct reference to season 3 for this fic feel like a tightrope walk. I’ve mentioned that I don’t want to retell the season. _Village_ established the characters on different trajectories, so while some of the dialogue here echoes canon, it should move a little differently. Matt and Lantom’s discussion about God and faith marks the biggest difference, or at least it did when I was writing, because of how their conversations unfolded in _Village_. 
> 
> I should also mention here that Matt is an unreliable narrator in this chapter. I usually don’t call attention to things like that and let them speak for themselves, but there’s a line here where Maggie comes off as cruel, and I tried to give her the opportunity to explain herself later on, but Matt is not in a forgiving headspace. Just be aware that this chapter is filtered through his experience, and he’s in a very dark place. 
> 
> Readers, lovely Readers, please enjoy!

* * *

 

“And I want you so badly  
But you could be anyone  
I couldn’t hide from the thunder  
In the sky full of song.

Hold me down, I’m so tired now.  
Aim your arrow at the sky  
Take me down, I’m too tired now  
Leave me where I lie”

~Florence + the Machine, “Sky Full of Song”

* * *

               Matt is ready to set fire to the bed.  

               He lies there, day-in and day-out, needing assistance for _everything_ : sitting up, standing up, lying back down; bathing, relieving himself, eating, drinking. Sisters announce when they’re coming in the room so as not to startle him, and even though he can hear their footsteps, he finds himself needing their voices. Needing that assurance of who’s there in the room with him. He can imagine what their heartbeats are like, these Sisters who are sworn to help children now tasked with tending to a grown man.

               St Agnes kids have made a game of seeing how close they can get without him noticing. One managed to touch his wrist and, Matt assumes, is now the child to beat, the bravest of the bunch. He can’t even really fault them for it. He would have been that kid. Would have probably done worse to the guy lying in the bed than touch his wrist.

               His nightmares persist; Matt resigns himself to them. Waking up on his uninjured side, sheets wrapped around his hand as he digs in his sleep through the rubble of Midland Circle. Alone, or so it seems. Hearing in his left ear has improved, but it’s not enough to pick up heartbeats on its own. His sinuses are still plugged up too. The world has become Schrodinger’s darkness, neither alive nor dead, empty nor full, and it doesn’t help that one of the people he expects to find can stay hidden when she wants to.

               …and why would she want to? The question occupies Matt at greater and greater length, unable to discern whether he’s angrier at himself for lying here or at her, if she is back, if she made it out, for not coming to him.

               The silk sheet is a balm somewhat, though Matt isn’t holding his breath on it either. He’s aware that the sheet is not the only thing to arrive from his apartment, but the hoodie does nothing against the chill that comes from the day-in, day-out of empty dark.

               Maggie checks in with him, and she doesn’t hover. When Matt tells her that he’s fine, she makes an acerbic remark, then leaves him to himself. The other sisters are kinder, though that doesn’t make it easier or better. Maggie’s ire feels deserved, feels right, feels fair. It feels like she gets it, who he is and what he’s done. Stupidity and hopefulness to his degree deserve a trial by fire at the hands of women of God. Kindness is pity. Kindness eats Matt up inside. Getting out from under Midland Circle is the last kindness he deserves. And what a fucking kindness it is, shackled to a bed, to a body, to the room. 

* * *

 

               “Matthew?”  
  
               Lantom is there.

               Briefly, Matt considers pretending to be asleep. Lantom doesn’t take much convincing. Since waking, Lantom lets Matt’s silence guide the conversation, or lack thereof. Today, however, he seems more eager, or maybe that’s Matt. It’s not like Matt can sense anything. No heartbeat indicating urgency, no motion in the air, no smell or taste. He’s gotten so used to going without that thinking about using them brings up the sorts of questions people would ask if they knew. How the hell would smell help him justify the suspicion that Lantom is there to talk? Is this what he does, just project himself endlessly on people, substantiating his selfishness with sensory cues that mean nothing, absolutely nothing?

               He opens his eyes. “Father.”  
  
               “Maggie tells me you know where you are now.”

               “Yes.” They can finally start skipping that part of the conversation, thank God. Well, maybe not God.

               “Must be strange, being back here. The place where you grew up,” Lantom says, taking a seat in the chair next to the bed. He puts something on the table next to Matt’s left ear, but the sound loses its dimension when it meets the wall of Matt’s right. He can’t tell what Father’s brought with him. “The nuns can be counted on for their discretion. Maggie has sworn them to secrecy. After she swore at me.”  
               That’s supposed to be a joke, but Matt doesn’t find it funny. It’s his fault that Maggie is swearing at Lantom. His fault the sisters have to be sworn to secrecy. His fault if the NYPD comes busting through the door and closes down St. Agnes for harbouring a vigilante.

               Lantom continues. To Matt, he sounds disappointed. That his joke didn’t land or that Matt’s not giving him very much – it doesn’t matter. Let Lantom be disappointed. They can both be disappointed. “There may be some people you want to know where you are, how you’re doing, vow of secrecy or not.”  
  
               “There isn’t,” Matt says.

               He doesn’t know what he’s hearing from Father, only that it has the faintest hints of an echo like a chasm, a bottomless pit. One opens up inside Matt’s chest and widens during the seeming eternity it takes for Lantom to speak again. “If you want to take Communion-“ The items on the table: Matt tilts his head away from them, causing Lantom to change tack, “Or we could just talk. What’s on your mind?”

               Matt isn’t sure what the hell to say. His is a one-track mind right now, but talking about Elektra again, even referencing Frank, he’s just going to get the same answers. Nobody knows what’s going on, nobody knows where they are. Elektra’s probably still underground and Frank is probably off fighting his war, and even if they’re not, they’re not here. They know to stay the hell away from here.

               As for the rest of it, Matt isn’t in the mood. Maggie tells him that his senses will return in time, but he’s been unconscious for weeks, veins flooded with anti-inflammatories and antibiotics, and his hearing is still shot. His hip and back are still in pain. If this is his new normal, Matt wants to accept it quickly and move along, not wait for some miracle to return his senses. He’s not waiting for miracles ever again.

               “Our conversations, they usually go one way,” he says. “I come to you with questions. You tell me what you understand about faith, about God.”

               “Is God on your mind?”

               Matt ignores the question: “Give it a rest, shall we?”

               Lantom’s sigh is audible. It echoes through the recesses of the abyss in Matt’s chest. “God didn’t collapse that building, Matthew.”  
  
               “Exactly.”

               “But He was there when it fell. And He is here now.”  
  
               “Spare me the recitation of ‘Footprints, Father.”

               “The children of St. Agnes frequently come and ask about God’s work in their lives. You did, once.”  
  
               “I remember.”  
  
               “Then you remember what I said. What I tell every child who comes into our charge: that God’s work is not for us to know. It is a tapestry viewed from behind, the beauty of which we cannot see.”

               “Poor choice of metaphor for a blind man.”   
  
               “You didn’t seem to think so at the time.”

               “I know better now.”

               “How?” When Matt doesn’t answer immediately, Lantom continues, “Your faith has been tested many times since then. With Wilson Fisk, Frank Castle, Elektra. You once told me that even if God didn’t exist, you would still do His work.”  
  
               “I said I would still be Daredevil. That I would still give people a second chance.”  
  
               “So what’s changed?”  
  
               Matt doesn’t know the words for it: he just knows there is a hole where his chest used to be, a hole that could contain all of Midland Circle and still seem empty.

               The impossibility of reading Lantom makes the hole in Matt seem even emptier. He wants to know what Lantom’s feeling so that he can avoid it or defend against it. Instead, he’s left waiting for the next blow. It comes in the form of, “I can’t speak for God or God’s work, Matthew-“

               “Then don’t.”  
  
               “-but even I have to admit it is a miracle that you survived, let alone escaped. That Frank was there –“

               His hip and back flare up in agony from moving, but Matt rolls onto his bad side, putting his back to Lantom. The silk sheet bundles up under him, and he awkwardly pushes it away, desperate to not feel it. Desperate to feel nothing. Let himself become as cold and an empty as the darkness inside of him and out. No more Devil, no more Matt Murdock.

               The soft sounds of Lantom breathing are all Matt hears, and even those disappear when he stops concentrating. He doesn’t know how long Lantom lets him lie there like that, but it’s perfect, horribly perfect, and only interrupted by a touch to his shoulder.

               “I know…” Lantom starts. 

               Matthew already knows what’s likely to come and puts a stop to it. “No, you don’t.”  
               “You can’t start shutting people out again.”

               He shirks off Lantom’s hand even though it causes his hip and back to roar. “I’m not shutting people out.” Can’t shut people out when there’s no one around.

               If Lantom sighs again, Matt doesn’t hear it. His left ear swells with the roar of his heartbeat. The sound is almost enough to drown out Lantom gathering his things. “I’ll be around,” the priest says. “When you’re ready to talk, we’ll talk.”

               He pats Matt’s arm once more before he goes. Matt lets him, allows for one last glimpse of warmth before he makes himself one with the darkness again.

* * *

               There’s a shift in Maggie’s posture and tone the next time she changes his bandages. Matt assumes he’s imagining things, willing her to have heard from Lantom how sad he is, how sorry for himself he is, how broken and faithless, and fuck, he’s everything she’s been saying. A child. Woe is me, poor me. Me, me, me. Even the self-hatred is indulgent, the ultimate act of narcissism. And here he is imposing his relentless ego on her and Lantom and all of St. Agnes.

               Her sudden politesse is as aggravating as her fellow Sisters’ kindness. Moreso, even, because this is _Maggie_. She’s never given him a break, and Matt can’t have her starting now.

               “This is healing well,” she comments, applying fresh gauze over the laceration on his left. Her hand trails around his waist to his hip, pressing and manipulating the muscle, the joint. “How’s your side?”

               “Fine,” Matt says, breathing through her ministrations. He manages to hold himself together until she reaches his back. After turning away from Lantom, the muscle there is tight and hot and throbbing. Maggie removes her hand and it continues to hurt, continues to hold him there, lying down.

               Whether she hears his discomfort or not is irrelevant. “You’re almost ready to start moving around on your own,” Maggie notes.

               Matt isn’t sure what he’s hearing lately, but he can guess by the cool dismissiveness of her tone this an effort to be supportive. Give him some of his independence back after insisting he stay in bed. What Maggie really wants to say is, “You want me to go.”  
  
               “This isn’t a convalescent home,” she says, but not in the tone Matt expects. Maggie isn’t ordering him; she’s resigned herself to his departure, to the fact that he isn’t her responsibility anymore. That he was brought into her care and now no longer needs it, and the person she expected to come back… “Once you’re up and walking around again.”  
  
               He’s heard this before. “I understand.”

               “I’m sorry.” And Maggie means it. “I can have one of the Sisters help you in making arrangements.”  
  
               “That won’t be necessary.” He’ll figure something out. His apartment likely isn’t an option, this many weeks past without paying rent. He can’t call Foggy and Karen, won’t subject them to him in this state, not after having been declared dead. Claire isn’t an option. Elektra is gone. Frank is…he’s not here.

               Matt resolves himself to what must be done. “I’ll figure something out.”

               Maggie leaves the room so quickly afterwards. Probably pissed off. And who can blame her? He’s still there, just lying in the bed.

* * *

 

               Relearning how to walk has to wait until Matt relearns how to get out of bed. Maggie’s comments about him flailing around weigh on him every time he crumples off the mattress, every time his hip gives out on his way to standing. She doesn’t mention his leaving again, but she does order him to go easy on himself as he tries to walk, and that weighs on Matt too, the getting the hell out of there. The horror of what happens when he does. He can’t go back to his old life, not like this. Blind man in a wheelchair or exhausting himself on crutches, deaf in one ear and unable to move his right leg, in pain.

               Lantom visits more regularly, and while he broaches the subject of God again, he doesn’t offer the sacraments. He’s there more to buffer Matt from Maggie’s request for him to leave. Yet another kindness Matt sees no virtue in: he has to leave, and he’s going to, on his own two feet, and the rest will sort itself out. Doesn’t matter to Matt much how; one thing he still knows for certain is that what will be will be. No use trying to stop it.

               He’s on his feet for the first time when his right hip gives out. He goes straight to the floor, landing on his knee, back and hip in sheer agony. His whole body broken out in a cold sweat, stomach heaving against his throat because he hasn’t eaten, he isn’t hungry. Matt kneels there on the ground, refusing to bend his left knee, refusing to bow to this, to lower his head in submission. He puts his face heavenward. The Devil writhes under his skin, searching for a way out, desperate. _Let me at Him. Let me at Him_.

               Matt grabs the bed post and pushes himself up onto his left foot.

               His back twinges so bad his awareness cuts out. He drops back onto his knee, body shaking so badly he can’t even try to stand. So badly he can barely keep his head up. So badly that he only stops groveling when Maggie comes and lifts him up, setting him back on the bed.

               She presses tablets into his hand. Matt pushes at her, along with the water she offers. Maggie pushes right back. “I’ve put too much work into you to have you screw it up now.”  
  
               “You want me gone.”  
  
               “I want you on your feet!” Maggie shoves the pills at him one more time. “Take those. Rest. Try again tomorrow.”  
  
               “What if it’s not better tomorrow? What if it’s never better?”  
  
               Maggie nudges at his hand again. “Then you keep trying. Now take those.”

               Matt tosses back the capsules and downs the water. He flops back onto the bed on his right side this time, burying his ear in the pillow so he doesn’t hear whether Maggie stays or Maggie goes. Not like it matters: there is nothing either way.

* * *

                Medication grog bothers him less now, his senses being what they are. His muffled hearing is less alarming; the lack of smell and taste is a relief. Nothing prickling at his senses means he can hover there in the darkness. Knowing that there’s nobody around makes that decision less aggravating for him.

               Must be night. The floor below is quiet. Matt rolls onto his back, stretching out his side from where he curled up on the bed. His back feels better. His hip does too. His left ear is free to stretch itself, roaming the space, listening for creaks of children sneaking up the stairs or the Sisters making their rounds.

               There’s nothing and no one, and something inside Matt falls. He doesn’t know why he keeps doing this, why he keeps expecting. Hell, he doesn’t know _what_ he’s expecting: Lantom to come offer him the sacraments, Maggie to come change his bandages, one of the St. Agnes kids to touch him on the hand and declare themselves the new daredevil.

               A floorboard creaks. At least, Matt thinks it does. He twists his ear in the direction, but he loses track of where it came from so quickly, he must have imagined it. He rolls over onto his bad side, curling up as best he can. His body goes easy on him for once, or maybe it’s the latent effects of the medication.

               He hears it again, the creak. Matt gets a read on where it is this time, turning his head towards where he thinks the door to the room is. He doesn’t want to ask, doesn’t want to give it away. If he looks like he’s awake, it’s enough for most St. Agnes kids to turn back.

               Whoever it is – if it is someone – doesn’t leave. They don’t make another sound either. Matt lifts his head off the pillow, urging them to go, but there must not be anyone there for how still the darkness has gone, how quiet things seem.

               He puts his head back down.

               The floor creaks again, closer this time.

               Matt braces an arm against the bed, ready to roll towards them. “Someone there?” he asks.

               Of all things, the silence is what does it. Maggie or Lantom would have answered him immediately. No kid from St. Agnes’s would be able to hide their breath or keep from bolting. Elektra wouldn’t have hit the creaky floorboards.

               His next breath gets lost to the bottomless pit in his chest. Matt slowly uncurls his spine. He doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t want to be wrong. He doesn’t want to be left alone. He wants to live in the darkness for as long as he possibly can before-

               “Frank?”

               This time it’s the wall that creaks, the doorframe moaning under the weight of a body easing against it in what feels, to Matt, like relief.  

               “Hey, Red.” 

* * *

 

Happy Reading!


	12. The Worst Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city. 
> 
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> I have to say that as happy as I am to have Frank and Matt together again, writing Frank and Maggie is nothing short of delightful. 
> 
> Readers, dear Readers, please enjoy!

* * *

“All the ways I try to love you  
They only serve to prove  
That it's never going to matter how much I do  
I break my heart in pieces  
I never quite get through  
Loving you is the worst way to get to you  
Loving you is the worst way.”

~Donovan Woods, “The Worst Way”

* * *

               Little girl touching his foot’s what wakes him. She’s a tiny thing, shocked by the sight of Frank’s eyes opening. Mouth opening in this perfect O right before she remembers who she is, where she comes from. Then this girl turns into Red, all straight lines and hard edges, and she bolts from the room. A team of footsteps join hers down the stairs.

               Frank rises on the bed. He isn’t more than a couple of inches before the dizziness overwhelms him. His stomach bucks into his throat. His thoughts heave. He falls back into the pillow, into darkness.

* * *

               Little girl’s back. Got him by the shoulder this time, giving him a good shake. Frank waves her away gently, gently. Head’s heavy, thoughts are thick, he’s tired. Too tired for sunlight and too tired for her, and he think she can hear Maria in the background – “Shh, let Daddy sleep” – but one good shake brings Maggie’s voice into focus, “Frank.”

               He gets his eyes open. Maggie gives his shoulder a good tug. Frank gets himself sitting only to pitch forward, unable to hold himself upright. He’s burning up. Head spinning so bad the floor rollicks under his feet. Maggie sways like heat climbing off the desert.

               She’s still talking, and Jesus Christ, for a woman of God, she has a mouth on her. More than a few choice words for Frank, who she yanks off the bed. He gets to his feet, staggering to the doorway. Maggie catches him before it does, and she keeps a hand on him down the hall to a small yellow room with a basin sink. A custodian’s closet. Must really have the good Lord on her side because Frank manages to make it the whole way there without passing out.

               Maggie gets the water running and yanks Frank close to the stream so she can get water on his face. Just like that, he’s awake. Standing upright, gasping for breath. Cold water cuts a harsh contrast with the heat coming off him. Frank shivers so bad he nearly misses the towel Maggie thrusts at him.

               “The children are saying there’s a dead man in the infirmary,” she says. “The way you look, I can’t blame them. You’re a mess, Frank. Matthew was in better shape when you brought him in than you are now.”

               Frank finishes drying off his face one-handed. His right hand is a fucking mess, swollen up so bad he can’t curl his fingers. He lets Maggie take it, lets her unravel the dressings. “What the hell happened to you? Did you find her?”   
  
               He shakes his head, gesturing in the kid’s direction as a signal for her not to talk. Slowly, the memory of his arrival returns to him, and Frank scrubs his free hand against his scalp, shaking the clouds out of his thoughts, trying to find the words. All he gets is the image of Red in the dark, the vacancy of his expression, the question, “Who’s there?” too late, way too late. If Frank had been anyone else, one of those fucking ninjas if they’re still alive, Red could be dead.

               “Matthew can’t hear,” Maggie says, prodding the wound on his hand. Puss busts out from under the stitches. She rolls her eyes, half a prayer for strength and half a _why am I not surprised._ “He’s deaf in his right ear and partially impaired in his left. I don’t know to what extent, but the sisters, Father, and I have been telling him when we enter the room, when we leave, what we’re doing.”

               “Is it permanent?”

               Maggie gives a small shrug. “Might be swelling. Give it time, maybe it’ll come back.”   
  
               “Maybe?”   
  
               She dangles Frank’s hand over the sink. “This needs to be drained and cleaned.”

               “He was under a building. His ear drums probably burst.”

               “Then they need to heal. He needs to heal.” Maggie leaves him, muttering, “You need to heal.”

               Frank can hear her digging for supplies in the next room. He looks through the crack in the door. The foot of Red’s bed is just visible, but there’s no way of knowing if he’s awake. And even if he is, shit, deaf in one ear, partially in the other. He might get voices, probably footsteps. No heartbeats though. No respiration. No rustles from the wind or vibrations in the walls or whatever the fuck else his mutant ears used to hear.

               Another scrub of his head doesn’t do shit for the clouds this time. Frank’s thoughts aren’t getting clearer; they’re cluttering the fuck up with Red and Elektra and Stick, Maria and Lisa and gunfire. He barely notices when Maggie comes back into the room wearing gloves, arms laden with iodine and bandages and other medical shit. She closes the door behind her.

               A few snips and the stitches on his hand snap open. Puss drains into the sink. Maggie pries the sutures out of his palm one at a time. Frank barely feels her ministrations through the heat. He sees his arm shaking, is aware of sweat pouring out of his back, his neck, his forehead. The pain itself is there, white hot, a snap of phosphorus under his open palm, but it isn’t him.

               She douses the whole thing in iodine though, and it’s very much him. Very much his pain, his agony, seething under his fingers. He lets out a loud groan, knees buckling under him. Frank locks himself standing, not passing out on her even as she scrubs away at the infected tissue.

               “Did you find her?” Maggie asks. Her voice is so low that Frank almost doesn’t hear her. The kid doesn’t stand a chance.

               Fuck, the kid. Frank reaches and shuts the door just in case, just in fucking case. If Red’s hearing is coming back, it’s gonna come back at the worst possible time, and right now is one of those times. “Yeah, I found her.”   
  
               Maggie doesn’t take her eyes off the wound. “This is her work, then?”   
  
               “ _This_ is.” Frank twitches his fingers to get her attention. “The burns are.”   
  
               “You’re burned?”

               He gives a nod.

               “And your neck?”   
  
               “Not her. The old man. The one who…” Frank gestures again with his head, not wanting to say the name.

               Maggie gives a slight nod. She finishes with his hand by dousing it in more iodine. Frank takes the pain, letting it pierce the fog he’s in, giving him a few seconds of clarity before the fever swallows him back up. Perfect timing. Maggie decides that’s the moment to ask, “Did you kill them?”   
  
               “Jesus fucking-“   
  
               She tugs on his hand for the blasphemy. “Don’t make me ask again.”

               “Does it look like I killed them?” Frank asks her.

               “I don’t know,” Maggie says. “It looks like you certainly gave it a try.”   
  
               Frank waits till she goes back to cleaning, but she doesn’t. She stands there, waiting. Patience of a fucking saint with a temper of fucking Lucifer. “No,” he says lowly. “They’re in the wind: the old man and Elektra.”

               “What do they know about Matthew?”   
  
               “That he’s alive.” Pretty much sums that up. Frank knows she’s thinking about the kids though, and he adds, “Shouldn’t worry, Sister: neither of them want anything to do with him.”

               Maggie’s movements immediately soften at that. With relief, Frank thinks, but the look on her face is almost sad. Regretful. Not the kids she’s worried about then. Sure enough, “A man who helped raise him and a woman he almost died with want nothing to do with him.”   
  
               Frank gives a small nod. Been through this before with Red, so it’s less of a shock to hear it out loud. “Everyone always leaves Matthew,” he says.

               “You don’t,” Maggie notes.

               “Don’t bring up that broke-out-of-jail shit again.”   
  
               “I don’t have to. Not after this.” Maggie gestures towards him, scanning through his injuries. Her gaze freezes on his neck. She stuffs the hole in his hand with antiseptic gel and wet gauze, then bandages him up. Frank tries to pry himself off the wall, but he doesn’t get far before Maggie is pulling at the dressings on his neck. The wound feels a hell of a lot better than his hand, but that ain’t saying much. Still can’t look good. He’s been working his ass off to get back to the city, not really paying attention to how much shit he’s putting himself through.

               Maggie cleans the area up with iodine and saline. She rips open an adhesive bandage and lays it gently over the area. That done, she takes a step back, surveying her work. “You really look like hell.”   
  
               “Yeah,” Frank says, feeling like hell.

               “The children can’t see you like this.”

               “I’ll go.”   
  
               She pulls off her gloves. “Whatever will I tell Matthew.”   
  
               Frank doesn’t answer: God damn trap, that’s what that is. Kid knows he’s here; that’s enough. They didn’t do much talking last night when Frank got in: he was exhausted, Red was out of it, not able to hear. Shit, Frank didn’t notice. Thought it was the hour or a head injury or meds, not his ears, his freak ears. Wonder what the rest of him is like, wonder if it’s permanent. Jesus, if it’s permanent.

               Maggie gets him antibiotics, pain meds, water. She gives him a towel, too, and leaves him to wash up a bit. There’s no mirror, but Frank figures that’s a good thing. Orphanage kids are thinking that he’s a dead man, and he’s probably earned that. He wipes at his face and the towel comes away streaked with red, brown, and black. His bruises have matured and deepened, layered one after another from the prison break to the fight with Stick to the next fight with Stick and Elektra.

               God damn it, Elektra. Frank splashes water across his face and head. Hair and beard are really coming in, but there’s no razor at the sink. One more thing to take care of later.

               Maggie opens the door and drops off a heap of clothing. Blue jeans, gray tee, black hoodie. Varying sizes. Pulled from the church donation bin. Frank changes, and when he steps out, he must look acceptable, because Maggie doesn’t stare.

               Still doesn’t feel right. Infection’s got his temp up, got him shivery and shaking, fresh clothes sticking to his skin. His hand is a permanent blaze and his neck throbs. Sight of Red is enough to knock what little wind is left in his sails. Broad daylight paints a grim portrait especially now that Frank knows what’s going on inside the kid’s head. How he can’t hear.

               Fuck, he can’t hear. Frank staggers back to the right side and takes a seat on the bed. That the kid hasn’t woken up yet might be the scariest shit. Used to wake up from deep sedation at the first hints of sound, and now he sleeps through Maggie pacing, through Frank coming and sitting next to him. Could be faking, Frank guesses, but nah, Red’s not that good of a liar.

               Eventually, Red does open his eyes, and the way he does it makes Frank looks away. Good thing that the little shit can’t hear his heart hammering away in his chest. He got so used to that gasp of air, the way Red sucks himself back into the pillow upon waking, and now the kid’s just eyes open, lying there, awake but for what. Resigned to this. He isn’t running at the mouth, smugly pointing out who’s scared or lying or pissed off, doesn’t count off kids on the floor below or tell what Sister’s with them in the infirmary by smell.

               “Hey, Red,” Frank says.

               Kid doesn’t sound so impressed. “Frank.”   
  
               “Rise and shine.”

               “Yeah.” Still not impressed.

               Maggie joins them in the room. “That any way to greet a visitor?”   
  
               “I said hello.”

               She pulls open the curtains, revealing the dull sunlight. Clouds cut through, dipping the whole city in shadow as they pass. Red’s face twists so easily into a scowl as his little room opens up to the world.

               “How yah been?” Frank asks.

               “Great,” Red replies.

               “Matthew was almost standing yesterday.” Maggie breezes around to the other window, past Frank, barely sparing a glance for Red’s face, but she notices. Getting a reaction from the kid seems to be a goal for her, and an easy one to achieve at that.

               “Standing up. That’s good,” Frank says.

               “Almost standing,” Red states flatly. “Lying on the floor is more like it.”

               “What a bright and cheery disposition he has, our Matthew,” Maggie adds.

               Frank tag-teams her: “Regular ray of sunshine.”

               Red sighs, just thrilled. There’s two of them now. His answer is equally disappointing: “Yeah, that’s me. Sunshine, choirboy.” Delivered in that flat tone, and worse, delivered in earnest. He isn’t trying to piss people off; he’s trying to get them to leave him alone.

               Fuck that. “You going to get up, Red?” Frank asks. “Or you just gonna lie there all day.”

               “Maybe in a while,” Maggie intervenes. She looks at Frank, lets her gaze crawl over his many injuries. “I can have one of the sisters bring breakfast. Coffee.”

               “Breakfast won’t change anything.” Red props his hands at his sides and pushes. He gets himself more or less upright, and while the look on his face screams that this can’t feel good, he keeps working. Left leg’s in better shape than the right; it bends first, gets moving first, while the right lags on the bed. When Red finally swings it over the side, the right foot just hits the ground. No muscular support or at least none that Red can offer.

               Maggie rolls her eyes and comes to his side of the bed. “Always so stubborn.”

               “This was your idea,” Red says.

               “This was Frank’s idea. My idea was to wait.”    
  
               Frank tries to save her – and Red – the trouble. “Not gonna wait, Sister. No stopping him once he gets going. Get on with it, Red.”

               “Why?” the kids asks, trying to mask the deep breaths he’s taking before he tries to get up, “You got some place to be?”

               “Stop stalling and stand your ass up.”

               “Don’t encourage him,” Maggie says.

               Red puts most of his weight on his left leg and manages to rise a couple of inches from the bed. Frank finds himself rising too, his own shakiness forgotten so he can get a good look at what Red’s working with. Back and leg are still pretty fucked, but Red is able to mostly straighten. The second he puts a little weight through his right leg, though, he starts to go down.

               Maggie reaches to catch him. Red catches himself and puts a hand up between them. Frank rolls his eyes, curses in what he thinks is quiet enough for Maggie not to hear. She shoots him a glare. Frank gets the hell out of her gaze by going to Red and grabbing him by the arm.

               The fight isn’t even really a fight. It’s the wormy fucking kid using all his length and skittishness to break loose and Frank trying to hold him steady by sheer size. Maggie grumbles in the background about how ridiculous they’re both being, moving to intervene. She never gets the chance. Frank gets Red upright, supporting most of his weight, right as the dumbass kid clamps a hand on the stab wound to Frank’s palm.

               Frank grits his teeth, barely catching a groan. His hand burns while his arm goes numb. His fucking knees damn near give out from under him. Maggie tries to swoop in at that, but Frank stands his ground, as much to hide his reaction as to gauge Red’s. The kid takes his sweet time trying to figure it out, but whatever’s fucked with his ears isn’t affecting his fingers. He loosens his grip. He slides his hand up Frank’s forearm, tracking past bruises, past cuts, to find a spot near Frank’s elbow where it’s safe for him to hold.

               Red steadies then, balanced on his left leg, the right one hanging stiffly under him. The muscles in his back keep twitching. Frank compensates, getting a sense for the damage as he responds to it, and thank God for that, because his mind keeps wandering. Back to the night of Fisk’s transport, to the cops pouring into the street, to Red standing his ground and Frank finding a way to make him go.

               The kid turns his ear towards Frank, the good one, and the movement’s so slight that Frank only notices ‘cuz he knows what to look for. Pretty sure he knows what Red’s looking for too, what with Red biting down on his lower lip, pretending he’s fine.

               Maggie lets out a sigh behind them. “Idiots. The both of you. Sit yourselves down before you fall down.”   
  
               “I have to use the restroom,” Red says.

               “I’ll take you. Unless Frank can manage.”   
  
               The kid answers for him: “Yeah, he can manage.”

               “Very well,” Maggie steps out of their way. She isn’t convinced, but she isn’t arguing neither. “Down the hallway to the right. Matthew knows the way.”

               Red releases Frank’s arm quickly. All of a sudden, he’s totally malleable, compliant, and Frank almost sends his ass with Maggie, he’s gonna act this way. But the kid doesn’t let Frank out of reach, draping an arm over Frank’s shoulders the way he never wanted to when _he broke his fucking leg_ and _needed some God damn help_.

               Maggie watches the whole thing with an impossible look of exasperation and awe. “This might be the most cooperative you’ve ever been, Matthew.”   
  
               “Must be Frank,” Red says.

               “Must be,” Maggie agrees.

               Frank grips his hand around Red’s waist and drags him out of the room before either of them can say more.

* * *

               The restroom door closes behind them, and Red is his ornery fucking self again, trying to rip himself out of Frank’s grip. “Your hand.”   
  
               Frank puts the kid in front of the toilet. “You need help pulling your pants down or can you do that yourself?”   
  
               “You’ve got a fever. I can feel the infection from the hole in your hand. What happened? Where have you been.”   
  
               “Been around. Got hurt,” Frank says. Instinctively, he puts his heartbeat nice and even. Red might not be able to hear, but he’s close enough to feel the pulse if he really tried. Clearly nothing wrong with his sense of touch.   

               “How?” Red asks.

               They’re not doing this in the bathroom, standing in front of the can. “How do you think? Jesus, are you going or not?”

               The kid reaches for his hand again; Frank pulls back, luring Red into a reach he can’t make without falling over. Red catches himself, barely, and ends up on the retreat, fire in his eyes. Frank meets that shit head-on. “There’s nothing to tell.”   
  
               Red’s shakes from more than just exertion, from more than just pain. More than the fact that he can’t tell anything but touch, even. His voice plunges down into the Devil’s depths. “That’s bullshit. You’re gonna tell me now.”    
  
               Frank lets himself go to the same place. “I’ll tell you when you can stand up.”   
  
               “Fuck you.”  

               There’s the spark; Frank’s been waiting. “Good to see you again, Red.”

* * *

Happy reading!  
              


	13. For Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city. 
> 
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> November was a very busy month. On top of NaNoWriMo, I was competing in a community theatre competition (we won, by the way!) and I moved. Into a house. That is mine, I bought a house, that was the adult-ing I was talking about last time. Holy crap. 
> 
> Readers, Dear Readers, thank you for sticking with me on this. I don’t want to say anything else about this chapter except that I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

“Maybe it’s enough that I have laid here  
Maybe it’s enough that I have known inside my head, and  
Maybe it’s enough to know that we were here together  
And that we are the ones  
We are the ones  
We are the ones for now.”

~Kina Grannis, “For Now”

* * *

               Matt tries sitting up, but the strain on his back is actually too much. He can’t pretend, can’t fight, can’t run. Maggie comes over and takes the pillow out from under his back, and he sinks back down as Frank watches, and Matt remembers very clearly what Frank’s disappointed heartbeat sounds like. His own sets the pace, pulsing furiously in his chest.

               God, he wishes he could tell what’s happening. There are footsteps and floorboard creaks and there’s an interaction, there must be, between Frank and Maggie, but Matt can’t read it. Can’t tell what their hearts are doing, how they’re moving. The way they talk, they’ve gotten to know each other. What that entails, Matt has no idea, and he wants to find out, but the thought plagues him that if he asks, they’ll just lie. And he has nothing to challenge them with: _nothing_. He can’t read deception from the feel of the bed under him.

               That stab wound in Frank’s hand is telling. Could be a gunshot wound, but Matt feels it in his bones for what it truly is, where it came from. And what the hell does it mean, then, that Frank’s here, that Elektra isn’t; if they fought and Frank walked away.  

               Maggie is about to take her leave. She signals as much with, “I’ll send someone up with breakfast.”

               “Thank you, Sister,” Frank mutters.

               Matt can’t believe what he’s hearing. That Frank even bothered trying to hide it by speaking so quietly. “Been here a while, Frank?”  
  
               “Been around. Checking up on you.”

               “Worried about me.”  
  
               “You brought a whole building down on yourself.”

               “And the Hand.” Matt focuses what little is left of his heart on Frank and adds, “Elektra.”  
  
               For a brief, shining second, Matt thinks he can hear Frank’s war drum heart going wild, but it’s just his own heart hammering away in his chest, desperate and wanting. “Did you find her?” He doesn’t mean to stammer, but his voice catches on her name, “Elektra?”  
  
               The silence is unbearable. If he could hear, Matt could make out Frank’s respiration, Frank’s tics, but Frank’s doing that thing where he disappears from the room and Matt can’t follow him. The darkness is as empty as it’s been since Matt first woke up.

               “That hole in your hand-“

               A knock on the door. “Good morning, Matthew,” Lantom says, “Frank, good to see you back.”

               “Father,” Frank says by way of greeting.

               “Can you give us a minute?” Matt asks.

               “Was hoping you could give Frank and I one, actually. Been gone a while. Need a cup of coffee?”  
  
               “Maggie’s bringing one.”

               “Ah, it’ll be cold by the time it gets up here.”  
  
               “Who am I to argue with a man of God,” Frank says, like an asshole. He’s already up and heading for the door, swiping at Matt’s left foot as he goes. “You take it easy, Red. Be back in a bit.”   
  
               Matt tries to get up after them, but his back is spasming. He can’t get further than a sitting position before he stops, holding his breath to let the retreating footsteps sink in. There’s a rightness in that, in hearing them walk away from him, and Matt falls back onto the bed, hands balled into fists, ready for a fight that's walking away from him. 

* * *

               Coffee from Lantom’s machine hits the spot better than the painkillers. Frank gets his head clear, gets his thoughts back. Still doesn’t have a fucking clue what he’s gonna say to Red about the hole in his hand or the fact that Elektra is in the wind, but he doesn’t have to worry about that unless Red, in typical Red fashion, comes crashing down the stairs in a mad, self-destructive quest for answers.

               Seems unlikely, though Frank finds himself checking the stairwell just the same. Lantom catches him. Tries to pretend that he doesn’t, but he starts the conversation with, “Shame Matthew can’t join us yet.”  
  
               “He’s getting there,” Frank says. Couple more days stuck in that bed. Nothing’ll get Red moving faster.

               “Maggie told you about his hearing.”

               Frank nods. Didn’t need to be told, but it helps clarify things. Lets Frank know what they’re up against.

               “He isn’t doing well,” Lantom says.

               “He’s stuck right now.”  
  
               “Maybe. But the way he’s talking, it’s concerning.”

               “How’s he talking?”

               “I can’t get into specifics without breaking my-“  
  
               “Vows, yeah.”  
  
               “No, I meant to say my confidence with Matthew. Truth be told, he hasn’t taken confession, nor has he taken the Eucharist.”

               “Now that sounds like breaking your vows.”  
  
               “I told you he _hasn’t_ been coming to confession,” Lantom says. “He’s made no efforts to contact his friends either, or to go home. I’m telling you this because I’m hoping you can help. Maggie tells me you found Elektra.”

               Frank tries not to draw too much attention to his hand and neck as he takes another sip of coffee. “She’s not coming.”  
  
               “She say why?”

               “Shit to do.” Frank is willing to leave it at that, but Father isn’t satisfied with that answer. He waits for the real reason. Frank isn’t in the mood for an interrogation, and really, what’s he keeping it a secret for from Lantom? Old man might be in a sharing mood about Red, but he knows better than to repeat what Frank’s about to say. “She’s not lookin’ to get him killed. Figures it’s bound to happen sooner or later if she’s around. She left. Don’t know where.”

               Lantom leans back in his seat, the truth sitting harder with him than Frank’s half-assed effort to get the old man off the scent. He gets back to business right quick by asking, “Does Matthew know?”  
  
               Frank plays with his coffee cup, watching the dark swirl against the light bottom of the mug. He places the mug down and lets the dark cover everything. “He’s suspicious.”  
  
               “Are you going to tell him?”  
  
               “Don’t have much of an option. Tell him she’s dead, he’s going to go digging till he finds a body.”

               “Tell him she’s choosing not to come back-“

               Frank shoots a glare at the priest. He knows where this is going with all the talk about uneaten Eucharists and unattended confessions. “Not my job to mind his faith, Father. That’s your gig.”  
  
               “I’m not asking you to mind his faith. I’m asking you to mind _him_. Matthew is in a vulnerable position. Learning that Elektra chose not to come back to him is the last thing he needs.”

               “You think I don’t know that.” Frank doesn’t let his voice get above a whisper. He’s too pissed off. Pissed off that she’s gone. Pissed off that he couldn’t bring her back. Pissed off that he knows, of course he knows, how this is gonna affect Red, that this will affect Red. Pissed off that he cares. He busted out of Super Max and trekked to a different fucking country, and now he’s conspiring with a priest about how best not to break a grown man’s heart.

               Frank goes to scrub at his head and the fucking cut gets in his way. Elektra was right: he shouldn’t’ve come back. They should both go in the wind. Let Red figure his shit out on his own. The next building that drops can be on his shoulders and his shoulders alone.

               But, “Kid’s gonna know. He’s not gonna let up.”

               “You think I don’t know that.”  
  
               It’s as much a statement when Father says it as when Frank does. Twice the snark, but that’s Lantom’s thing.

               “Then you know I’m gonna have to tell him,” Frank says. “That he’s not gonna give me a choice.”  
  
               “Give him time to heal.”  
  
               “He’s not gonna take it.” Frank is about to pitch the cup into the table out of frustration. He scrubs at his scalp. Fuck the laceration. Still, he winces when he jostles what Stick left him with, when he balls his other hand into a fist and the hole stings from where Elektra stabbed him. Kid’s gonna make a beeline for it the second he’s able. Then what? “I would want to know. My girl was out there, refusing to come back to me, I would want to know.”

               “And what would you do, you knew that?”

               “I’d get up. Get back to work. Which is what he’s doing, you give him the chance.”  
  
               “You and Matthew,” Lantom says slowly, “Do very different work. And might I remind you that Matthew’s work, up until Midland Circle, was directly and deeply connected to his relationship with God. A relationship he no longer wants to be a part of.”  
  
               Frank draws a breath and means it when he says, “Can’t say I blame him.” Well, he tries to mean it.  
  
               Lantom glances heavenward, then casts his gaze around the canteen for more unseen support, finding none. “No, I didn’t think you would. But this isn’t about blame: Matthew believes, for whatever reason, that God has left him. What will he do when he finds out that Elektra has done the same?”

               “You’re still here,” Frank says. “Maggie.”  
  
               “ _You_ ,” Lantom says pointedly. He doesn’t give Frank a chance to interject. “We might as well not be, as far as Matthew is concerned. He believes that he has been abandoned, and he is looking for evidence of that. In that sense, I suppose I am asking you to tend to his faith in this regard. Let him keep what little of it remains for as long as possible.”

               “What happens, he doesn’t let that happen?”

               Lantom sighs. “I’m praying it doesn’t come to that. He’s still bedridden. Not much of a fight.”

               Frank’s turn to look skyward, give a little glare at the big guy upstairs if He’s watching. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, Father.”           

* * *

               He takes a cup of coffee for Red as a peace offering. Spots from down the hall that the bed is empty. No sign of a body on the floor, so Frank puts the coffee down before he goes into the room.

               Not getting attacked comes as a shock. The kid is hiding by the wall, but he isn’t ready to pounce anytime soon. He’s got his work cut out for him by just not being on the floor. One hand is pressed against the wall so hard the tendons are popping. The other is gripping his hip, trying to keep his right leg from collapsing. Which it is and will, regardless of how hard he tries.

               Frank gets over and grabs Red by the arm, and it works about as well as he expects it to with Red. The fight starts. Red swings his fist into Frank’s chest. He goes to take a swing with his other arm, but that makes it easier for Frank to nab him, pull him upright, get him a step back towards the bed.

               “No,” Red says, digging his good heel into the floor. He tugs back on his arms, his right leg quaking underneath him, about to go. “Let me go, Frank.”  
               His voice is off. Part-devil snarl, part-desperation. The combo sets Frank off, gets him to actually let go, and Red manages, with the help of the wall, to hold his ground. His face is twisted right up, leaping between menacing and pained and frustrated and pissed, so fucking pissed. He tries to put his fist through the wall from how pissed he is, but he can’t muster the strength. His right knee bobs and he’s nearly back on the floor again if not for Frank, who gets hit again for the trouble and _does not fucking care_. He heaves the kid up, dragging him, bitching and groaning, back to his bed.

               Red hits the edge of the mattress and refuses to go any further.

               “Lay down, Red,” Frank tells him.

               Nothing. The kid grips the edge of the bed, shaking so bad that he looks shattered from the inside out. Like every bone in his body is nothing but a fragment, his skeleton rollicking under his too pale skin, his depleted musculature.

               He tries to get back up. He tries to put himself on two feet. And Frank stands there, watching the whole thing, the anger inside prying at his bones, clawing under his skin, raging hard at Red, for Red, about Red. Red, quaking on his own two feet. Red, nearly collapsing into the floor. Red, crumpling up like heaven itself is coming down on him and hell if he ain’t gonna be on two feet when it comes.

               “I’m standing,” Red says.

               “Hardly,” Frank replies.

               “Tell me! The hole in your hand! Where have you been, Frank?! Where have you-?”

               He chokes on his next words. Mutters a few things that might have been _oh, God_ -s in another life. He sinks back onto the bed, fighting, fucking fighting. Always with the fucking fighting. Even as he collapses onto his side, he’s fighting.

               Frank can’t take it anymore. He grabs the kid and manhandles him into a position where he isn’t straining his back and hip. Red’s groaning starts to ease up some. “Breathe,” Frank says. “Count it out, Red. Come on, breathe.”  
  
               “Tell me where you’ve been,” Red demands.

               “Been down to the Hudson where your ass washed out of the sewer,” Frank says. “Been to your church again, thinking I’m getting you last rites.”  
  
               “Sorry to disappoint.”  
  
               His breathing starts to even out. Frank keeps going. “I went to your apartment. Went to your friend’s apartment, Nelson.”

               Red gets a bitter smirk barely diminished by how much pain he’s still in: “Karen?”

               “Didn’t have to. She was spending time with Nelson. Worrying about you. They think you’re dead.”  
  
               “I am dead.”

               Oh, Jesus fucking- “You are not.”  
  
               “I am. Matt Murdock is –“  
  
               “ _Is alive_ , dumbass. You’re alive. This? You feel this? Huh? You feeling this?” Frank nudges at him, gets a groan in response. Puts Red’s respiration back up. He doesn’t stop till Red knocks his hands away. “That’s living. You made it out from under that building. Now you gotta live with it.”

               Red shakes his head. Looks like he’s about ready to stop talking, the way his jaw gets set, but he reopens his eyes. Got the Devil clawing through him when he asks, “What happened to your hand?”  
  
               Frank drops down on one knee next to the bed. He grabs Red’s hand, yanking against the pathetic little fight Red gives him. “You want to know what happened to my hand? You want to know where I’ve been?” He puts the kid’s hand up to his scalp and swears to Christ _he will break the kid’s wrist_ for doing more than feeling.

               Red recoils, but Frank doesn’t let him go. Touch is the one sense that he knows Red’s got left, the one sense that Red wants to put to use. Eventually, his fingertips find the laceration. Frank drags them down to his broken nose, to his neck, letting Red brush over the bandage there. By the time he gets to his hand, Frank finds the kid is settling into quiet.

               He releases the kid’s wrist, and the kid lays his arm back down on the bed, going quiet. That pain in his expression is gone. The fight’s left him. Colour’s come back into his skin, and the shaking’s stopped. Frank gets off his knee and sinks onto the edge of the bed by Red’s right leg, trying to hold onto this. The fact that Red is still here, and try as he might to convince people he’s a melodramatic, nihilistic little shit, he’s still Red.

               “How’d you get out of prison?” he asks.

               That right there – still Red. Frank masks his relief on instinct, refusing not to do it even if Red can’t hear. He’s fine to talk about Super Max. “Made a deal with the doc. He gave me a pill.”  
  
               “You faked your death.”

               “Yeah,” Frank says. “Figured anything you can do, I can do better.”  
  
               Red actually gives him a little laugh at that. He goes quiet again a second later, lost in thought. He comes back with, “Fisk?”  
  
               Fuck. “What about him?”  
  
               A smile. Jesus fucking Christ, it’s an actual smile. Small and tragic and _knowing_ , and from Frank’s angle, he can barely see it, but it’s there. “You didn’t kill him.”

               “Guards got to me before I could do it,” Frank says.

               “Yeah. Sure, they did.”  
  
               Red’s smile is back on his face. Frank can hear. He doesn’t want to look. Thing’s fragile enough as it is; might not withstand another glance. Might give way to that Devil itching under Red's skin, the one that's hungry and itching for a fight. 

* * *

Happy Reading!

              


	14. Way Down We Go Pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> I didn’t know what was going to happen in this chapter. I knew where I needed to end up, and then I didn’t get there, because as I wrote, the emotions in the chapter started to take shape. The challenge continues to be the ways in which this fic intersects with canon, since it’s approaching the themes of season 3 but distinctly different from it. 
> 
> Other things that I have previously stated in author’s notes but still feel the need to emphasize, third-person limited narration coupled with Matt’s headspace means that even good intentions have cataclysmic impacts. Just be advised. 
> 
> Similarly, please be forewarned that, while not explicit, there are passages implying suicidal ideation in this chapter. 
> 
> Readers, dear Readers, thank you so much for sticking with this story. Thank you. Enjoy.

* * *

“Oh, Father, tell me, do we get what we deserve?”

~Kaleo, “Way Down We Go”

* * *

               Frank's wounds stick with Matt, but they don’t nag at him. The darkness doesn’t either: Frank occupies the room in a way the Sisters don’t, in a way that Lantom can’t. Matt doesn’t feel so preyed upon, and the ache of his hearing loss and lingering taste of blood in his mouth don’t seem so oppressive. The wounds on Frank’s face live on his hands. His head is filled with a war drum heartbeat and the heat of blood rushing from open wounds, battles they fought to stand in for the one Frank isn’t telling him about.

               The next day, Matt finally stands. Just wakes up and does it. He hurts: in his back, in his leg, in his chest. But he can breathe and think and _focus_ for what feels like an eternity before Maggie comes up behind him and puts a cane in his hand.

               “I don’t want it,” he tells her.

               “Starting to enjoy being on the floor, do you?”  
  
               Matt grips the handle of the cane so tight the ache in his arm silences the aches in the rest of him. He releases, amazed to discover the pain isn’t quite as bad. He’s about to gloat to Maggie when he realizes the relief has nothing to do with his own fortitude. He put his weight on the cane to add extra pressure, and the cane is doing its damn job, alleviating the load on his mending back and hip.

               The strength in his arm wavers. Matt wills himself through the shaking, but it’s no use. This isn’t a spasm; he literally doesn’t have the strength to hold himself upright _even with a cane_. He lowers himself back on the bed before his hip gives out.

               “It’s a good start,” Maggie says, breezing out of the room.

               “Thirty whole seconds,” Matt notes.

               “Not quite,” she replies, “But you were standing. That’s more than you were able to do yesterday.”

               The little victories are grating. Matt remembers them from after the accident, when the trauma counsellor was coaching him through his first weeks of blindness. Focus on what you have and all that. Back then he had his mind, his memory, his senses. Now what he has got: bum leg, injured back, what sounds like water in his left ear and absolutely nothing in his right. Twenty-odd seconds with a cane is a drop in the bucket compared to how far he still has left to go.

               If there’s any further to go.

               Maggie comes back into the room with clean dressings. Matt knows the drill. He lays back, pulls up his shirt to reveal his abdominal wound.

               The sound Maggie makes is audible even to his ears. Matt rolls his eyes. “What?”  
  
               “Most cooperative I’ve ever seen you,” Maggie deadpans. She removes the bandage from his waist. “Must be nice, having Frank back.”

               Matt isn’t giving her that. “If you say so.”  
  
               Maggie doesn’t give him that right back. “I know so. How do you know each other? Besides your highly publicized court case.”

               “You heard about that.”  
  
               “I live in an orphanage, not under a rock.” Maggie dabs at the wound with iodine. Matt resists the urge to squirm from the stinging. “I heard about his arrest too. His first arrest. Is that how you met - through his trial? He seems an unlikely ally for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.”

               “Ally is a strong word.”  
  
               “I was aiming for understatement. Thought you and Frank would be able to recognize it, the way you carry on with each other. Constantly pretending that something means nothing as if it actually might someday.”  
  
               “We understand each other just fine.”

               “You make it sound like you always have.”  
  
               Matt hates this, being trapped. Not even just to the bed, but in her words. To deny what Maggie says reveals the progression of his acquaintance with Frank; to agree means that they’ve understood from the beginning. Either way, Maggie wins.

               “We had a difference of opinion,” Matt says.

               Maggie rips open a new bandage, unpeels the cover from the adhesive backing. “Is that what you’re calling friendship nowadays?”

               “I never used the word friendship.” Not now, not ever. Not out loud. “I broke my leg. Frank, he saw me back on my feet.”

               “And he broke out of prison to do that too.”  
  
               “No, he wasn’t…” Matt stops himself. He doesn’t want to think about it. His weeks in the Bronx are closing in with all their ridiculous intensity. He thought he shed their weight, thought he managed to bury them. He had to bury them. There was no going on with life knowing that they had happened, that they were real, that they might someday be real again. “We met on the rooftop of Metro General. He was trying to kill someone; I stopped him. He shot me in the head.”

               Matt means to leave that there in the room, but he just can’t. Even without hearing Maggie’s heartbeat, he has to add, “It was a warning shot. He knew he wasn’t going to kill me.”

               “Hell of a way to say hello.”  
  
               “I threw him through a window the next time we saw each other. A skylight, actually.”

               “And then let me guess: you brought a building crashing down on you both.”  
  
               He smirks. Can’t help it. “How do you think I broke my leg?”        

               Maggie tugs off her gloves. Matt pulls his shirt back over his waist. “Where is Frank?”

               “Not far,” she replies. “He keeps close tabs on St. Agnes. He must have a place to stay nearby.”

               “He probably does. Shitty little walk-up with a rooftop access. Corner unit, with windows on the parking lot and street.”  
  
               “You know the type. Got a place like that yourself?”  
  
               “My walk-up isn’t shitty,” Matt says. Corrects himself: “ _Wasn’t_ shitty. It’s not my walk-up anymore.”  
  
               “You could find a new place.”

               “So eager to get rid of me, Sister.”  
  
               “Eager to see this pity party you’re throwing for yourself end.” She gets up from the bed, gathering her things. “Your life, your career, your friends: they’re all still out there. They’ll be happy to know you’re alive.”  
  
               She’s supposed to leave. Matt even gives her the last word so she’ll go, but Maggie lingers there by his bedside, waiting for a response. When one isn’t forthcoming, she takes the liberty of responding to his next argument. “You can’t think it’s easy for them.”

               “I don’t.”  
  
               “So what? It’s easier for you?”  
  
               Matt levels his glare at the ceiling rather than giving Maggie any kind of regard. “Don’t you have children to take care of, Sister?”

               “I do,” Maggie says, and that she walks away now lets Matt know he’s in for it. He tries to get off the bed again and succeeds with the help of the miserable cane, bracing himself against the onslaught of Maggie’s voice crashing through the dark. “And what they wouldn’t give, the children, for someone who cares about them as much as your friends care about you. What you wouldn’t have given when you were a child.”          

               “I didn’t know any better.”  
  
               “Is that what I should tell them, then?”

               “I didn’t know who I was,” Matt tells her. He plays with the cane. Wrong weight, wrong size, just wrong in his hand. Shake it and there’s no cut of his white cane, there’s none of the finesse of his Billy. There’s nothing but the friction of air across the wooden shaft. Resistance. The sensation of being underwater comes back to him with the warble in his left ear. “Everybody dies, Sister.”

               “You’re not dead.”

               “You call this living?” He stabs the cane down, puts his weight on top, and he swings himself forward into a single, tiny step. It takes everything to get his left leg a few inches, the weight balanced precariously atop the cane and still causing his back to twinge, his hip to throb. Almost immediately, he staggers back, the back of his left knee hitting the bed. The rest of him following, landing on the mattress with such force the breath gets knocked out of his lungs.

               He doesn’t know if Maggie’s there. She could have walked away. Probably should have. Even he has a hard time believing the bullshit coming out of his mouth, even if it feels true. Even if it feels right and justified, his being here and not letting Foggy or Karen know. Not letting anyone know. There’s a reason, and she can’t see it without having been where he’s been. In the dark, in the nothing.  

               “They were waiting for this to happen,” Matt tells her.

               He’s surprised when she replies, “Who? Your friends?”  
  
               Nodding. Matt moves the cane over to the night table with a shaking hand and props it up there, in reach. Then he lowers himself onto the bed, taking the weight off his spasming back. “It was only a matter of time.”  
  
               “It only ever is for everybody,” Maggie says. “ _Everybody dies_. What makes you so special?”  
  
               Matt laughs. Maggie’s cutting and exacting. None of the blunt force trauma of a collapsing building. She’s surgical. “They always knew being the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was going to get me killed.”  
               “You proved them wrong.”

               He shakes his head. Rolls onto his back and lays there, wallowing, the agony forcing all the air out of his lungs. Let his mind wander and he’s back there, underground, with her. Almost like he never left. “They wanted the Devil gone. They got their wish: I’m not the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen anymore.”

               And maybe that’s the thing that he actually can’t face: that they won’t just be happy to have him back. They’ll be even happier to see that the Devil can't be back too.

* * *

               Presuming it’s nighttime when he wakes comes with the painful reminder that he doesn’t know. Sure, St. Agnes’s is quiet, but with his hearing the way it is, St. Agnes is always quiet, always muffled.

               Matt focused and makes out a low tone in the hallway. Thunder gathering for a storm at sea. He breathes a sigh and decides it must be night, because that’s Frank, and a scamper of footsteps a second later says one of the kids got a few words with the Punisher. Won’t Maggie be thrilled.

               “Making friends?” Matt asks.

               The darkness swells with Frank’s sudden appearance. He’s been trying to keep quiet apparently, because his next footfall after Matt speaks is audible even to his left ear. “You certainly are.”  
  
               “Kids are curious.”  
  
               Frank gives that noncommittal _hm_ he does when he doesn’t want to say more. Matt wants to probe that, push back a little, but Frank pushes something forward instead. Something that hits the edge of the bed by Matt’s hand. “Got you something.”  
  
               Matt reaches, his fingers brushing over well-worn rubber. Metal rims. A wheel. He draws his hand back to his side. “No.”

               “You want to get out of this bed.”  
  
               “I stood up today. Twice.”

               “You walking?”  
  
               No, but when he is, God help Frank Castle. “Fuck off, Frank.”  
  
               “Get into the God damn chair, Red.”  
  
               The sharpness in Frank’s voice, the sudden escalation in the argument. Matt missed the point. “What, now?” He figured the chair would be for later. Tomorrow, maybe, when he’s on the floor again.

               But no - “Yeah, now,” Frank snaps. “Gonna show you something.”  
  
               Matt closes his eyes, draws a breath like he’s gonna go back to sleep. “No.”  
  
               Frank shakes him. “Get in the chair before I put you in the chair.”

               “Go away.”

               There’s some satisfaction in detecting that huff of Frank’s breath, knowing what Frank’s heart is doing in his chest, knowing that he, Matt, is responsible for it. The satisfaction fades when Frank grabs him, but there’s a different kind of satisfaction in the fight that follows. In getting to lay his hands on another person with just cause and righteous indignation, in getting Frank to swear at him and tear at him. In feeling real and seen and alive. The Devil is alive. The Devil might be the only part of him that made it out from under Midland Circle.

               Matt ends up in the wheelchair, gruff enough that his back pain halts the melee, but not as rough as it could have been. Frank puts what strength he didn’t use for throwing Matt into wheeling him out of the room as quickly as possible. They go to the stairs, where Frank turns him around and starts dragging the chair up one step at a time.

               They reach the landing and stop. Matt listens, but he can’t make out anything significant. He can’t make out anything at all. Frank’s made himself invisible, drawn himself right out of the stairwell. Matt leans back in the chair. “You taking a breather back there, Frank?”

               The chair is tugged back so gruffly Matt nearly slides out of it. He lets out a small laugh and gets told to shut up before they start on the next flight. “This was your idea,” he says. “You put me here, remember?”  
  
               “Didn’t make you stay under that building,” Frank says, breathless. He doesn’t stick around on the next landing, just keeps climbing despite how much his pace slows. “And what the hell are you talking about, my idea? You’ve been wanting out of that bed so bad, you’ve been breaking your back to do it. I should’ve told you to stay in bed. You would’ve been on your feet in a second.”  
  
               “Just one contrary son of a bitch.”    
  
               “Yeah, you are.” Frank stops finally. Matt can’t get a read on the space; he doesn’t even try anymore. The radar in his brain is black, one endless void, even as Frank throws open a door and the air rushes to meet them.

               Matt plants his hands on the wheels, not going another inch. “No.”

               Frank pushes against him, but Matt won’t give. He isn’t, he can’t, he won’t. “Take me down,” he says. “I want to go back.”  
  
               “Red-“

               Matt gets up and out of the chair. He doesn’t know where he’s going: he could be headed straight down the stairs again, but that would be better than where he’s headed. Mercifully, he hits a wall, and he balances there, using it for leverage when Frank comes at him.

               He doesn’t want that either: the fight. Not anymore. He is so sick of fucking fighting. “I get it!” he snaps. “I get it, alright? There’s still a world out there, and I survived, and it’s a fucking miracle. And I should be so thankful. I should be so thankful to God and you and Maggie and Lantom that I made it out from under Midland Circle. But I’m not, Frank! I’m not!”  
  
               “Not doing this for gratitude,” Frank says.

               “Then why are you doing this? I can’t hear! I’ve got the wind on my skin, but I don’t know where it’s coming from. You want to show me something, but I can’t see! There’s nothing out there, Frank, not for me! And every single day there’s even less of it. So I don’t want to go out there, and I’m not going to let you take me.”

               “You can’t hide here forever.”  
  
               “I’m not hiding.”  
  
               “Then what are you doing?”  
  
               “What I want!” He flails a hand around, looking for a way out. He follows the wall to the corner and turns. His knees are shaking so bad he’s going to go down, and the stairs have to be right next to him. Frank grabs him from going any further, which only makes Matt push despite the fact that he is broken, he is in pain, he is a hair’s breadth away from a fall that he can’t perceive as anything other than more blackness.

               He slams a fist into Frank’s shoulder, slams another into the wall, and he knows what’s coming. The floor’s fucking coming. And he’s fucking crying – shit. His eyes are burning, his cheeks are cold. Matt flails to get himself together, but the wind keeps pouring in, and the muffled sounds of the city are behind it. Sirens and, somewhere he can’t reach, screams. And, God, he was right: being the Devil was right. Decimating the Hand was right. Being with Elektra at the end of everything was _right_ so why the fuck is he here like this?

               Frank grips him by the arms, swings him around, but instead of heading down the stairs, Matt ends up in the wheelchair. He stretches out his back, trying to alleviate some of the pressure, and fuck, Frank ends up helping him with that too, adjusting him by the hip, and Matt tries fighting him again. He tries because that’s what he does, and it’s what Frank does, and why aren’t they fighting? He’s sick to death of swinging punches, but it’s all he knows, it’s all he has left, and Frank isn’t even giving him that anymore.

               Matt draws up tight inside himself suddenly, pulling himself together. Hardening his face, swiping away his tears, holing himself up in the memory of walls, of ceilings. Of containment. Of a darkness with limits and boundaries, a place where Frank can’t reach him, a place where it’s him, and Elektra made it out, and his time is running out, and the darkness if going to end.

               But then Frank’s hands are on his arms and he isn’t under Midland Circle anymore. Wind rushing through the open door, chill sparking on his skin, Frank inches from him: they’re in the Bronx. Back in that shitty apartment standing in front of a broken window after the fight. The only two people in the whole wide world.

               There’s peace here. Fleeting, but Matt remembers languishing in it the day before, even this morning. Knowing that Frank didn’t kill Fisk, knowing that Frank’s here. He hates himself for needing that, hates himself for needing. Period.

               “Why am I here?” he asks. “Why the fuck am I here?”  
               Frank hasn’t let go of him. “That’s on you, Red. Gotta answer that for yourself.”

               Wind lashes against his tear-streaked cheeks. Matt tosses his head, sounds sloshing about in his one working ear. The city in the distance, far away from him, sirens blaring. If he stops focusing, he doesn’t have to hear them anymore.

               So he doesn’t.  

* * *

       Happy reading!


	15. Way Down We Go Pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> Hello and Happy New Year, Readers!
> 
> Thank you for your patience on this chapter. I was traveling over the holidays, visiting with family, and it was wonderful. I hope you all had wonderful winters too! Please enjoy this new chapter.

* * *

“Oh, ‘cause they will run you down, down ‘til the dark.  
Yes, and they will run you down, down ‘til you fall  
And they will run you down, down ‘til you go  
Yeah, so you can’t crawl no more.  
And way down we go.”

~Kaleo, “Way Down We Go”

* * *

               The kid closes himself off completely. He tolerates the next visit, but he won’t talk about that night. Won’t even rise to a fight when Frank ribs him about it in front of Maggie. It’s like talking to a brick wall; kid doesn’t want to play. He meets every barb with a world-weary sigh and fires off a couple of monosyllables before getting infuriatingly quiet. Maggie coos again about him being cooperative, and he doesn’t disagree with her. If anything, Red doubles down on that acquiescence, and Frank damn near hauls his ass off that fucking bed to finish what they could have in that stairwell.

               Lantom arrives and makes a quick study of the place. “Well, maybe Matthew would like to join us for coffee this morning.”

               Frank waits for him to say no, but Red is just all about pleasing people this morning. “Yeah, sure,” he says flatly, “That sounds fun.”

               Maggie leaves the room, stopping on her way past Lantom to say, “This is a bad idea.”  
  
               Red grimaces, aware that he’s being talked about but probably unable to hear what’s being said. Can’t make a comeback when he can’t hear, and Frank can’t help but getting a little satisfied when he sees the kid getting pissed off. Anger’s not much, but it’s something more than Red seething inside himself all the time.

               He puts himself in the wheelchair and sits there, enduring it with all the sullenness of a fucking teenager, and fuck, Frank’s pissed off about that and the fact that he can’t fault the kid for it. Not completely. Red didn’t want crutches, railed against the need for them. Now he’s literally getting pushed around. Hauled up and down stairs. Sits at the table, forearms slung on the armrests, a mopey expression on his face. He tilts his good ear towards the table and points his eyes to the floor.

               Lantom puts the first latte in front of him. Red’s thanks is so low, emerging from his throat like an echo from somewhere deep down inside him. He picks up the cup, and that first sip elicits the same kind of disappointment as everything else.

               “Not good?” Lantom asks.

               “Can’t taste it,” Red says, taking another drink. “Can’t taste anything except blood and ash.”

               “Still?”  
  
               The kid gives a singular nod. He puts the cup back on the table, obviously wanting out of the conversation. Out of the church, but instead of looking skyward, his eyes are downcast, aimed for the basement and below.

               Frank’s asked it once, and he’ll ask it a thousand fucking times more: what the hell is wrong with the kid? What has him wishing he was back the fuck under Midland Circle?

               Lantom puts a latte in front of Frank. “Thanks, Father.”  
  
               That gets a little bit of a smirk from Red. Frank goes with it. “That funny to you, Red? Me thanking a man?”  
  
               Red says it like he’s closing an argument in the courtroom: “Thanking a priest.” Frank takes a sip of his latte and waits for the next bit, knowing that when he doesn’t react, the kid’s gonna serve up some other barb he’s got special for the occasion. So predictable, Red, who mutters, “Old habits die hard.”  
  
               “Says the kid who asked for this place from his deathbed,” Frank chides.

               He earns a wince at that, a fleeting one. Bitter pill to swallow for poor Red with his shaking faith, but he always did like the bitter pills best. “This place is clarifying,” the kid says. “Puts things into perspective.”  
  
               “What kinds of things are those?” Lantom asks, finishing up with his own drink. He plants himself on the opposite side of the table from Frank, leaving Matthew slumped in the wheelchair to his left and Frank’s right, smack at the head of the table. “Could’ve sworn you had the mysteries of St. Agnes all worked out when you lived here.”  
  
               “Red’s always got it all figured out,” Frank says. He catches another wince, one that hardens this time. Devil’s there. Needs a little prodding to bring him out to play, but he’s there. “So lay it on us: what have you figured out?”

               “When did you stop going to church?” Red asks.

               Frank shakes his head. He looks back at Father Lantom, colluding. “Not gonna tell us.”  
  
               “Was it after you came back?”  
  
               Lantom jumps in the line of fire. “We were talking about you, Matthew. Your perspective. What has St. Agnes taught you?”  
  
               Red twists his face even further away from the conversation. His eyes go even further than that. Frank can only see the whites from where he’s sitting, can only see those fault lines of the blood vessels drawing red lines all the way to the kid’s black-brown irises.

               When he comes back to the conversation, Red’s still hiding inside himself. Badly. His skin seems ill-fitting. Matt Murdock’s a suit. “Nothing,” he says. He lifts his cup. “Latte’s good,” and then, after a slight pause for emphasis, “Father.”

               “Bullshit it’s nothing,” Frank says. “It’s nothing, how about you and me take another walk up those stairs? Check out that rooftop?”

               “Beautiful day outside,” Lantom adds.

               Red rolls his damn eyes in Frank’s direction. His next comment is just for Frank. “You gonna describe it to me?”

               Frank puts down his coffee. He levels a stare at the kid, wondering where the best pressure point is, where he can bait the Devil completely out of hiding. But the Matt Murdock suit looks more and more like a sad kid, and Frank doesn’t know what the fuck to make of that.

               Lantom is a voice of calm reason: “You wonder about when Frank left the church.”

               “I don’t think Frank left the church,” Red says.

               “Have you?” Lantom asks.

               Red smiles. That boyishness sharpens in light of that wicked gleam in his eyes, and he looks even more like a devil because of it. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

               “You’re in the building, but the Catholic Church is more than stone and mortar.” The priest’s voice gets low, almost a whisper. “Do you still believe in God, Matthew?”  
  
               “Absolutely,” Red says, and he means it. “I feel like I know God better now, in fact. Like we finally understand each other.”  
  
               “St. Agnes has been clarifying.”  
  
               “Yeah.” Then, fuck, the kid shifts his focus back. “What about you, Frank? Do you believe in God?”  
  
               “We’ve had this conversation before,” Frank says, drinking his latte. Keeping his cool. Kid can’t get a rise out of him with a theological conversation. This is amateur hour. “I want to know about this understanding between you and the big guy upstairs.”

               “I want to know when you stopped going to church.”

               “What’s going on between you and God?”  
  
               Red doesn’t budge. “I want to know why.”  
  
               “Why? If you’ve got such a good understanding, you tell me.”

               Fuck, he sinks right back down inside of himself. Shies right the fuck away from the question and disappears under that sack of Murdock flesh he’s wearing as a fucking costume. “I’m ready to go back upstairs now.”  
  
               “Answer the-“  
  
               Lantom cuts Frank off by putting a hand on his arm. “You’re sure, Matthew?”  
  
               Red’s turned his whole body away from Frank. “Yes.”  
  
               “Alright,” Lantom gets up from his seat. “I’ll get Maggie.”  
  
               “I’ll take him,” Frank says.

               Lantom’s hand goes to his shoulder and holds him in his seat. “I’ll get Maggie. She and another of the sisters can manage.”  
  
               Frank stands, letting the priest’s hand fall away. “I’ll take him. Not letting him bother the sisters over this.”

               “Spoken like a true Catholic,” Red notes.

               “You would know.”

               Again, the barb just shuts the kid down. “Yeah, I would.”  
  
               Lantom’s turn to roll his eyes. He takes the handles of the wheelchair and draws Red away from the table in the exact opposite way that he should, with a kind of gentleness that the kid doesn’t deserve, the slowness he shouldn’t take. Frank follows along until they get to the stairs, whereupon the priest finally hands over the chair. Before Frank can yank Red up the steps, Lantom’s at the handles, controlling their ascent to something more manageable.

               Frank can’t stop himself from seething, and the sight of Red just in the chair, shrunk so small and deep inside himself that he may as well not be there, that makes him seethe harder. “You can’t stay here forever,” he says.

               “I know,” Red replies, whatever the fuck that means.

               “You know. Why aren’t you doing anything about it?”  
  
               No answer.

               They get to the infirmary floor. Lantom takes the wheelchair from Frank. “I’ll take it from here, Frank. You go back downstairs.”

               “I’m leaving,” Frank says. He means it.

               “See you, Frank,” Red calls after him.

               Frank gets the fuck out of there. For Lantom’s sake. Can’t have the old man reffing a fight between him and the kid.

* * *

               There aren’t many places to hit, but Frank hits them all, hits them hard, and hits them fast. Couple drug dealers here, a few would-be gangs there. He foregoes explosives and sniper rifles for close-range weapons, digging in with knives and handguns and both his fucking fists. He’s ready to tear down buildings, ready to flip cars, ready to rip up the asphalt. This whole city. This whole fucking city. And God damn Red right in the middle of it.

               He ends up on the roof of St. Agnes, intending to sneak down the stairs and drag Red up kicking and screaming, but he’s halfway down the stairs when he stops. He staggers back up to the roof and slams the door behind him. Pain catches up with him in a rush, and Frank sits there with it a while. Listening. It’s shit, but Frank doesn’t know what the fuck else to do.

               He unwraps the bandage from his hand, checks the wound. The infection’s cleared up, but he’s hurting everywhere the old man and Red’s girl got him, and if that isn’t a fucking mouthful. If that isn’t exactly why Red’s hiding away in his old orphanage, and why he, Frank, is sitting up here like an asshole on a rooftop ledge like the God damn Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

               The door to the roof opens. Frank knows without turning around it’s Maggie, and he knows she’s got coffee with her from the smell. She hands him the mug, and he takes it without looking. Sips it. Looks up in surprise when that taste of whiskey hits his tongue.

               “Thought you could use a drink,” Maggie says, clinking their mugs. Her own coffee must be dressed to match his. “Cheers.”

               Frank takes another drink. Whiskey’s good in the coffee. Eases the sting in his knuckles, slows the flow of thoughts in his brain. He shakes his hand, stretching out his fingers against the tight, knitting flesh through his palm. Maggie catches sight of it and sips at her coffee in silent approval of how the wound looks in the streetlamp light.

               “Matthew’s in quite a state, isn’t he,” she says. “I’ve never seen him like this before.”

               “Give it time,” Frank almost says, but he stop himself, not trusting those words. Not trusting anything about the kid’s recovery anymore. Swelling goes down, yeah. Bones mend, sprains heal. But what’s happening with Red is more than blood and muscle, more than body.

               “Father Lantom is making arrangements for his further accommodations at St. Agnes. There’s a room in the basement, you remember. The one you bled all over?”

               Frank shakes his head, less from being reminded about him and the old man than the idea of Red heading underground. “He can’t stay here forever.”  
  
               “I agree,” Maggie says, “but Paul – Father – he’s concerned, and I…I agree with him too.”

               She takes a very long drink of her coffee after that, trying to fill up the space that the confession once occupied in her chest with whiskey. Frank recognizes the trick. He tries it too, even though he knows he won’t do a damn thing.

               Maggie sighs. She swirls her coffee around in her mug and surveys the streets. The wind plays with her dark hair, which Frank suddenly notices isn’t covered. She’s out here in an overcoat, out of habit. Not really a nun at the moment. “He never did have anyone,” she tells the street below. “Father died.”  
  
               “Mother died,” Frank adds.

               “He told you that?” she asks.

               Frank shrugs. Maggie looks back to the street.

               “You knew his dad,” Frank says. “Jack Murdock.”

               “Battlin’ Jack,” Maggie replies. “Yes, I knew him. He was a good man, good father. Good fighter. I see a lot of him in Matthew. Especially the fighting.”

               “Kid’s definitely a fighter.”

  
               “Tough thing about fighters: they need something to fight for. Or someone.” Frank ignores the meaningful glance she sends in his direction. “Matthew’s very good at fighting for other people. And if he’s fighting for himself, I see where Father is coming from, worrying about what happens. Who’s to say what parts Matthew has left that he sees worth fighting for.”

               That strikes a chord in Frank. He gazes out at the streets that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen once protected, at the city that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen so loved that he gave himself to save it, and he wonders what men like that do when they lose themselves. Where to men like that go, how far do they sink, and whether they eventually come back. He knows where he went, after Maria and the kids, but as Father pointed out, he and Matthew do very different work. He and Matthew have very different parts of themselves worth saving. He and Matthew have very different ways of saving themselves.

* * *

Happy Reading!  
              


	16. Stupid Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city. 
> 
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> The second I sat down to write this chapter, the writing happened. Part of that had to do with the way this chapter intersects with season 3: it borrows two scenes, one of which includes what I consider to be the most iconic scene involving a true hero. I hope I have done that hero justice in writing their efforts to help Matthew recover, because they truly are responsible for one of the most satisfying scenes in the season, nay, the series. 
> 
> I’m talking, of course, about the neti pot. Let’s be real here, Frank and Maggie and Lantom are doing their best, but they aren’t soaking blood and mucous out of Matt’s face. 
> 
> It’s been one of the biggest challenges and joys of this story to revisit season 3 and decide what to keep and what has to change given what happens in _Village_. You’ll notice that, as mentioned, some of the dialogue here is from the show, but some of it has been changed to fit this particular story. 
> 
> I want to also mention how funny I find it when the staging for these two idiots crosses out of gen territory and goes straight for It's Complicated (but We're Definitely a Thing and Don't Want to Admit It). 
> 
> Big thanks to bluesyturtle for pointing me in the direction of the song for this chapter (and the songs for many more chapters to come, lol). 
> 
> Readers, dear Readers, please enjoy.

* * *

“Little child with your baby curls  
Never had your chance to choose  
But your innocence it don't mean a thing  
You done lost the life you never had the chance to lose”

~Lincoln Durham, “Stupid Man”

* * *

               Matt’s few steps are rewarded with a trip to the basement. Lantom and Maggie bring him down. Frank isn’t there, for which Matt is grateful. He already gets enough comments from Maggie about the sisters having better to do than take care of him, yet again about the church not being a convalescent home.

               “Very Christian of you,” Matt says. Hates himself for saying it, the vanity that it requires to insist on her service to God to help him get in and out of bed, to wipe his ass, to keep him here instead of throwing him out onto the street. But they’re _her_ vows, not his.

               “Angry, sarcastic, and stubborn,” Maggie note with a sigh, then, cheerier, like she’ had a revelation, “Maybe you don’t have any friends! Except we know that’s not true.”

               Matt stops her before she can talk about Frank. “Someone once told me that warriors were meant to be alone. That caring for people would make me weak.”  
  
               The silence lasts a beat longer than it should, but Matt doesn’t bother reading into it. Silences are all lasting longer than they should lately. He gets out of the wheelchair, propping himself up on the cane, and takes a few steps into the small space they’ve made for him. Usually, he would count paces, find the walls with the sound of his voice. Now, he doesn’t bother. The walls are where they are, and he isn’t moving much more than a few steps. He’ll find them when he needs to find them, forget about them when he doesn’t.

               “Sounds like he needed to get laid,” Maggie says at last.

               “Hah.” Finally, a thought he can abide. “That actually explains a lot. I mean, he was right, of course. Letting people in, it’s a weakness.”

               He bumps his hand on a shelf of books in the corner of his alcove. Weathered covers, thick tomes. Matt picks one up and asks, “What’s this?” knowing full well it’s a trap. Thick books in a church – Jesus, it’s the sort of question only an idiot would ask, so he guesses it’s perfect that he fucking asks it. Perfect, too, that he flips open the covers and starts running his hands along the page just to feel the bumps, feels the words forming in his mind.

               “Dug those out of storage,” Maggie says. “You were probably the last one to read ‘em.”  
  
               “My Bible.” Matt tears himself out of the reading, out of the memory. He slams the cover shut and holds it tight, hoping he can press the brail out of the pages while relishing the hurt that comes from knowing he can’t. “All right. I get the hint.”

                “And I get that things are complicated with you and the guy upstairs.”  
  
               “No, no,” Matt refuses to let her have that. Refuses to let anyone have that. He’s so sick of treating anything other than blind faith as complicated. Things aren’t complicated. Things are simple. “I’d say we finally understand each other.”

               He stares out at the darkness in front of him, the formless, soundless abyss of it, wondering how to describe that to Maggie. “There was a man from the land of Uz…” he begins.

               Maggie’s tone could not get any flatter. “Book of Job.”

               “The Book of Job,” Matt says with a wicked smile crossing his face. He gets the Bible out of his hands before he can tear it apart. “The story of God’s perfect servant, Job. Of all of God’s soldiers, Job was the most loyal.”

               “I know the story, Matthew.”  
  
               “Then you know what happens next.” Matt details it for her lest she push the Bible back into his hands. He doesn’t need a reminder of Job’s children being slaughtered, his home and lands being burned to the ground, of boils and sores. He has suffered and bled. He’s held his face to the dirt, the actual, literal dirt of the city. He’s borne witness to suffering and death, had the people he loves taken from him, had them leave him, and still professed his faith.

               God, Matt still wants to. He wants to feel God even just to be pissed off instead of useless raging against the emptiness in front of him.

               Maggie remains unimpressed. “You see yourself to be a perfect servant of the Lord? A loyal servant?”  
  
               “I tried to be,” Matt says. “I believed that was the cost: God has a habit of raining shit and misery on the lives of people trying best to serve Him, and the true test of faith is not rising from the ashes or picking up others who God has also seen fit to punish. All perfect servants have to do is refuse to curse His name. Job didn’t. After everything, Job still would not curse God.

               “I said God and I understand each other now? Well, we do. Job was a pussy.”

               The last of his strength pulls away from him. Matt’s knees shake like the hand of God is there pushing him back to the floor. He finds a chair instead and takes a seat, surveying the darkness in front of him with bitter acceptance. Maggie isn’t saying anything. A little surprising: he expected that she would. He’s never used the word ‘pussy’ ever, not in earnest, not after Stick. But Stick was right. Stick was fucking right about everything.

               “That was me, Sister,” Matt tells her. “Not perfect, no. But I suffered willingly. I gave my sweat and blood and skin without complaint, because I, too, believed that I was-“ the next words break him more than using the word ‘pussy’ – “God’s soldier.” Matt laughs into the darkness in front of him, his voice occupying the whole of oblivion despite its vastness. He lets his smile fade. “Not anymore. I am what I do in the dark now. I bleed only for myself.”

               Maggie says nothing, but Matt knows it’s not because there’s nothing to say. She always has words, Maggie, and she’ll have words about this. A stern lashing for a naughty child raging against God for his own misfortune. Matt deserves that, fine, but it doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t make it worthy of his time or his attention. He can hear her dimly despite his choice not to hear anything at all, not to read into his surroundings. She comes near him, takes him by the wrist. Matt opens his palm to her because all his body is, now, is a puppet on mangled strings, and he lets her lay a necklace in his palm.

               The crucifix is cool. Matt closes his fist around it, passes it to his other hand, and swings it by the string onto the cot. The Bible and now this: “You weren’t listening,” he says.

               “I was,” Maggie says, “I heard every spiteful word. You might hate God right now, but the feeling is not mutual.”

               She hangs the crucifix on something. A lamp. Fitting place for it. Matt’s not going to use the lamp for anything either.  
  
               “You spoke to Him, did you? Had a nice chat about me?”  
  
               “I don’t have to.”

               “That’s the difference between us, then, Sister. I’ve seen His true face. I’m looking at it right now. And I don’t hate Him. I understand Him.”

               “And you curse him.”

               Matt smirks at her. “Well, guess you were listening.”

* * *

               Maggie leaves without more argument, and Matt’s grateful. Being alone in the basement sounds a lot like what little he can hear. Footsteps are muffled. Stone absorbs the noise from the street outside. The last vestiges of dissonance, his knowing that he has hearing but not being able to hear, give way to this perfect lie that he can hear, there just isn’t anything to listen to.

                There’s a bed for him, a bathroom. Clean clothes and a buzzer for when he needs help. Matt wanders through the rest of the space using the cane, knocking his feet against the stone pillars, his hands against the votive candles. He stops not when his weakness gets the better of him but when the lack of vibrations threatens to bring him back to his knees. He sinks onto the bed, head tilting skyward, hoping despite himself that the deafness will be knocked loose. Barring that, he hopes for vibrations to rain down on him from above.

               Nothing happens.

               One of the sisters brings lunch. Matt eats what he can; it’s not much. He gets in and out of bed and makes his way slowly, painfully, through the space. Doing it once before, he feels confident, but the dimension remain a mystery. He misjudges distances and walks into the pillars. He catches the cane on the wall. He ends up seated on a stone bench, unable to move much further, this silent darkness vast around him, loaded with obstacles that may as well be shifting position for how well he can track them.

               A door opens. Boots take the main stairs two at a time. Matt tries to hide his disappointment. He waits for the greeting, but the walls and pillars are likely obscuring him from view. Or maybe not. Maybe he imagined the dimensions of the space, misjudged the cut through the air of the walls as he passed by them. Doesn’t fucking matter; Frank’s going to come out with it. He’s got that pace to his steps, didn’t even bother trying to sneak around.

               “Getting around alright, Red?”

               Matt raps the cane against the floor. “Not right now.”  
  
               “Obviously made it over there by yourself.”

               “Obviously.”  
  
               Frank takes a spot to Matt’s left, sounding far away and too close for comfort in the same miserable instant. “Sister says you’re moving down here full-time.”  
               “What else did Sister tell you?” they all talk, the three of them. Maggie, Father, and Frank. Matt’s own personal holy trinity. Can’t imagine Maggie didn’t mention their theological discussion from earlier.

               “Anything she should have?”  
  
               Matt rolls his eyes. “Don’t lie to me.”  
  
               “Not lying. What’s on your mind, Red?”  
  
               He gets the cane under him, puts himself back on his feet. “You know.” Matt takes a few painful steps away, back to his alcove. He ends up at another pillar and tries to pass off running into it as a clutch for support. He can’t tell how successful he is. Frank’s stalking him through the basement. Predation and comfort feel the same to Matt’s limited senses, all the more because this is _Frank_ and they’ve done this before. This chase.

               Matt tries to deflect from his shitty navigation skills, his bumping into things, his wincing and wheezing as his back, still recovering from his first lap around, protests more movement. “You here to make your case for the guy upstairs? Bring me…bring me back into the light?”  
  
               “Just what the fuck is your problem, Red?” Frank snaps. He hasn’t gotten much closer, but his voice is doing a good job of closing the distance for him.

               “You know what my problem is.” Matt pushes himself off the pillar and continues to make his painful way through the space. He finds the shelves and rounds the corner, ready to hit the bed, but he doesn’t. The air grows cooler. The room feels off. He reaches ahead into nothing. He props himself up on the shelves and stretches the cane out until he hits the steps.

               Shit – he forgot. There are two shelving units to pass before he hits his alcove. Turning at the first leads to the stairs and a door to the street.

               Matt draws the cane back to his side. He turns around, and there’s Frank right behind him, a veritable brick wall of a human being. Always was bigger than Matt, but Frank feels like a behemoth now, looming there, at one with the darkness. Matt backs away, rubbing his arm against his side to get rid of that flash of heat that Frank sends through his sleeve.

               “I meant what the fuck is your problem with me?” Frank asks, his voice a low growl. “You wish I left you on that beach, that it? Wish I’d put you out of your fucking misery or, shit, everybody’s fucking misery?”  
  
               “I wish you’d leave me alone.”  
  
               “Really.”

               It’s not a question: it’s this flat, fucking statement. Skeptical out of certainty, of knowing. Frank knows him and sees him and Matt can’t even tell where he’s standing, only that if he takes a step, Frank will be there. In his way.

               Matt tries to get around anyways. He ends up back in Frank’s chest, recoiling, this time too pissed off to reach for the shelves even though his back and leg are about to give out. Frank stays his ground, hovering in the dark. “You want me to leave, Red?”

               The way he asks it kills all the words Matt was prepared to say. The way Frank asks it, he sounds like he would. He’d leave. Go and stay gone. Matt balks internally, the impossibility of Frank doing anything if asked shocking him to the core, but the more the thought works in his head, the more apparent the door is behind him. The colder the air seems. The shakier his leg becomes underneath him. The ground is solid but about to fall away.

               Matt grabs the shelves. He shoves past Frank, moving as fast as he can back to the bed. Cold sweat has broken out along his shoulders and drains down his back. He hugs himself in the precious moments he thinks he has before Frank is there, and even once Frank arrives, he doesn’t stop.

               Frank wordlessly tosses some extra clothing at him. Matt pulls the hoodie on, tucking himself, shivering until his muscles finally give out. Only then does he realize what he’s wearing, where it came from. That they’ve been here before. That he’s being an asshole, and he’s being an asshole for, what? To see how big of an asshole he can be? And even then, he doesn’t win, because he’s stewing in his own guilt for biting the hands that feed and clothe and carry him, the people who refuse to curse him even as he curses them.

               Matt can’t resist glowering at the ceiling. “I don’t want you to leave,” he says, even though he doesn’t have to.”  
  
               “Yeah, I know,” Frank replies, rubbing it in.

               But just in case it isn’t clear: “I don’t want to talk about God either.”  
  
               “I got that too.”

               The simplicity of the answer, the knowledge that Frank isn’t here to question him or argue with him, that Frank _can’t_ when it comes to God, brings Matt an ease he hasn’t felt in a while. He lays back on the bed, his shoulders finally relaxing. Temperature regulating. Spasming in his back subsiding.

               Frank, naturally, breaks the silence. “You call Job a pussy?”

               Matt scowls. Of course Maggie told Frank. “Am I wrong?”

               “Never thought you’d be the one to say it.”  
  
               “Never thought I would either,” Matt admits.

               “To a _nun_.”

               “I’ve said worse to nuns before. Said worse to Sister Maggie before. _About_ Sister Maggie.”  
  
               “Yeah, yeah, you got a mouth on you.” Frank quietly mutters, “Job was a pussy…” testing it out against the acoustics of the room. He can hear those better than Matt now. “Kind of sound like an idiot.”  
  
               “You agree with me.”

               “You don’t believe that.”  
  
               “I do. You do too.”

               That’s not the point, not for Frank: “Jesus, you sound like-“

               “I sound like you?” Matt suggests.

               Frank sidesteps the issue completely. “You calling people pussies now?”

               “Calling as I see them,” Matt says. “I keep saying that I…I’m not who I used to be,” he strengthens his voice for the next few words, “And I’m not.”

               “You want to curse anyone for bringing that building down-“

               “Curse myself? Don’t worry, Frank. I’m doing that.”    
  
               “Think you’re a pussy, too?”  
  
               “I think I used to be,” Matt says. “You did too: _once_.”  
  
               “Yeah,” Frank says pointedly, “ _Once_. But that was before I got to know you. And I told you since, ‘re not a pussy. You’re a God damn pain in the ass.”  
  
               Matt’s grateful to be back in familiar territory. Even if he can’t appreciate it. Even if he isn’t the same person. Distantly, he can hear Frank scrub a hand over his scalp. That sounds different, too, to Matt’s ears. Everything does, but he’s heard Frank rub his head so many times in close quarters, it’s not just the hearing loss making it sound different, sound off. Rhythm’s the same, gesture’s the same, but the sound isn’t. More hair, maybe. Frank might not be the same person either.

               Matt’s heart fills with a wholly different kind of sadness then: he thought he was the only one that he didn’t know, but now he’s worried he doesn’t know Frank either.

               Frank speaks, but the words get lost with him standing on Matt’s right side. “What?” Matt asks.

               “You didn’t finish lunch,” Frank says again, louder this time.

               “You talk to Maggie about that too?”

               “She talked. I tried to tell her you weren’t going to listen, but she seems to think you’ll listen to me.”

               Matt sighs. “I was going back to it. I can’t taste it. Everything tastes like…” He runs his useless tongue on the roof of his mouth, trying to place the flavour with his senses, what little of it there it. “Ash and concrete. Blood.” If he’s lucky. Blood’s familiar. Blood’s different. Blood sparks through the wall occupying the whole front of his face, and while there isn’t a world outside of it, reminds him that he’s still alive.

               Frank doesn’t respond. Not for while. Not until Matt’s sitting back up, hunched over his cane, prepared to make a go at the room again. “Still can’t believe it: you calling Job a pussy. What the hell, Red?”

               What the hell sounds about right, so Matt leaves it at that.

* * *

               Morning comes with warmth through the windows. Matt rises from the bed, this time without the use of his cane or the wheelchair, and he stands on his own foot, lightly balancing with the other, waiting for a muscle spasm to knock him down.

               He’s fine. The pain is a twinge. Moving quickly or harshly might set it off, but Matt finds a pace that gets him to the basin sink on the far side of the room. He flips on the tap and bends over – not too far – finding a place where he’s able to get to without falling over. He fumbles for the soap, his hands shaking with excitement from coming this far. Almost pain-free for the first time in weeks.

               He drops something. Matt hears it clink inside the deep basin of the sink. He grips the shelf with one hand as he reaches with the other, his fingers coming across two foreign items at once: the first, a resealable bag of powder; the second, a ceramic lamp. A pot.

               Matt goes to open the bag, but he decides against it. He can’t feel the contents, and this close to the sink, he could end up wiping cleaning supplies on his tongue. There’s a note attached to the top anyways, a piece of paper stabbed through with a pen in rudimentary braille. Frank, probably. **Salt.** Matt rolls his eyes and examines the pot. Long tip, open at the top, with a handle. A neti pot. Dad used one every now and then after a fight to clear the blood and mucous out of his nose. Seems like a longshot it’ll work for him, but Frank’s going to ask him about it, as will Maggie and Lantom, and Matt wasn’t to be able to report on the failure in full detail.

               He fills up the pot, pops in some salt, and presses the tip of the pot into his left nostril. He takes a breath and tilts his head to let the water flow into his nasal cavity.

               He imagines the sound of ripping, little tendrils of clotted blood and mucous and concrete snapping from the inside of his sinuses as the water hits them. The effect is instantaneous: Matt jerks back, exhaling hard through his nose, spitting a wave of hot copper and asphalt through his mouth. It hits the sink with a splat that he feels more than hears and keeps hitting, rivulets of blood running freely out of his face on the saline flushing him out.

               The wall from the front of his face, it’s gone, and Matt’s dumbfounded in its absence. He spits again and again, trying to clear the rest of the shit out, the salt and the ash and the city all leaving him in a rush. He feels the darkness sweeping in with renewed emptiness now that his nose is clear, but the fear gives way to curiosity. He has a sense of the sink, of the mirror above it, of the doorway next to him.

               Matt wipes at his lips, his nose, his cheek. He straightens, forcing himself not to overanalyze the situation, to let the sensations come to him. They do: partly through his left ear, which has cleared, and partly through his newly freed nose and mouth. He goes to wash his hands, pretending not to notice, but he turns off the taps before he can finish because there it is. A rumble through the wall. Matt touches a hand to the mirror to feel the tremble. The trains are running, and while the vibrations are faint when he’s not touching them, he knows how to find them.

               He doesn’t give himself a chance to stop. He turns and faces the expanse of the basement, that looming darkness, forcing his thoughts to hone on the soles of his feet where the floor rumbles softly beneath him. Slowly, the darkness takes shape: the walls, the pillars, even the chipping tiles. He can smell the dust and must, the calcium deposits from the water, the old plumbing, the laundry. His bed not ten paces away from him, including the lingering warmth on the blankets.

               The darkness isn’t so dark anymore.

* * *

Happy reading!

 


	17. Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city.
> 
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the extra time this chapter took. There was a death in the family that kept me from writing – and posting. I appreciate your patience very, very much. Thank you!
> 
> I’ve had a couple of requests for the Spotify playlist to this fic, and I’m happy to share! Just a note – the list itself is in order for the first 17 tracks. Basically, anything that’s been posted so far is in the order that it appears in the fic. But everything after this track is simply inspiration at this point. I either have a chapter in mind, or it may be deleted from the list when I finish the fic. Here is [the playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/00yGWZIzkz5Xwg7RmDQP83?si=9AShsBU5Q1-I0jaXfhYbBQ) if you want to give it a listen! 
> 
> On another note, this chapter also went on for 2000 more words than I thought it would, and that was after I cut down on the content. I’m happy with what’s getting posted, but I’m also still amazed that after this long I don’t expect that things will never go as planned.  
> Readers, dear Readers, thank you for being here. Enjoy!

* * *

“I had a one-way ticket to a place where all the demons go  
Where the wind don’t change  
And nothing in the ground can ever grow  
No hope, just lies  
And you’re taught to cry into your pillow  
But I survived.  
I’m still breathing, I’m still breathing…  
I’m alive.”

~Sia, “Alive”

* * *

               Red being in the basement changes up Maggie’s schedule. She’s outside more often with the kids, supervising them at a small playground. She’s unimposing. Almost fades into the background, actually, the way she stands in the centre and surveys her charges. Content to be called upon when they need her, then vanish for them as they go back to play.

               Frank doesn’t ever go to her when she’s like this. Calls unnecessary attention, especially with the kids recognizing him. That one little girl who snuck into the infirmary has eyes on him as he passes the playground. Even with a hat and a hood hiding his face, she’s got him pegged, and she glares daggers at him from the swing set.

               Jesus, every time he’s at the church, Frank gets one more reason why Red is the way he is.

               He goes through the basement door, down the short set of steps, through the shelves. There’s some casual disarray, habits tossed around, old clothes draped on the floor. Kid’s been digging around down here.

               Frank listens for footsteps. Doesn’t hear none. He peers through the shelves at the alcove to find an empty bed, empty corners. Sunlight pouring through the space, catching dust motes, warming the smell of old paper from the stack of tomes piled in Red’s corner. But no Red. Not there or near the sink. Bathroom door’s open, so not in there neither. Frank gets to the edge of the shelves and looks through the room, nothing catching his eyes but the pillars holding up the church.

               Shadows hang steady on the walls. Frank’s eyes hone in, catching the movement of dust for signs of breath or waves from recent movement. He waits for the light scrape of Red’s feet on the tile, his staggered gait. Nothing comes. The room may as well be empty.

               Frank casts a quick glance over his shoulder behind him. Fucking Red. Be just like him to have hidden himself in the shelves and jump out at the last second. But there’s no one between Frank and the door and no sign someone’s still in hiding. No, Red’s out there. Behind one of the pillars. He’s been standing there a while, letting the air go steady, and he’s waiting for Frank to wander on through.

               “Guess that neti pot worked,” Frank says, stepping into the ring. He’s got his eyes peeled for even the slightest movement, remembering Red’s little games of hide-and-go-fuck-yourself back at the apartment trying to teach him how to deal with ninjas. Little shit’s going to be even more of a fucking terror now. “Got that taste of ash and blood out of your mouth. What else did it do?”  
  
               He hears something, or he thinks he does, and turns around to see more nothing. Frank’s eyes even dart up to the ceiling, half-expecting to find Red crawling up there like a spider before doing his usual flying squirrel routine. Still nothing.

               Shit, maybe he isn’t in the room. Maybe he’s upstairs with Father drinking a cup of coffee that he can actually taste. Frank peers around the nearest row of pillars, keeping his footsteps light despite the question of what the kid can hear. Neti pot wouldn’t clear out his hearing. Can’t all be blood and concrete blocking up his sinuses, right?

               More movement. Frank gets to the wall on the left, stalking more quickly now. Waiting for that streak of black in his periphery that signals exactly where the kid isn’t or maybe where he is. Fucking Red and his misdirection, and fuck the old man who taught it to him.

               Frank plunges through the pillars, wanting to get this over with. Kid wants to play? Fine, he’ll play, though what the fuck game this is, it better not be a God damn fight. He knew. Fuck, he knew, and he’s been saying from the beginning that Red gets more annoying as he recovers, not less. Neti pot cleared up his sinuses, but there’s nothing for Red’s recklessness or his stubbornness or his asshole-ninja training.

               He rounds the corner at a row of pillars, glancing over his shoulder, picturing the scene so vividly of a shadow in his wake, slipping silently behind a pillar whenever Frank’s gaze gets too close. Frank stops short, hoping to trip the little shit up, and he thinks he hears something, but it could just as easily be his heart racing around in his chest as it could be the kid stalking around.

               Something hits the wall. Same way that Stick’s sword did when they first met. Frank reaches for his damn sidearm: can’t stop himself. He takes aim at the nothing and nobody standing around him, and he braces himself for Red tackling him to the ground.

               The kid does no such thing. He uses his voice instead: “Hi, Frank.” Slightly questioning, like Frank’s the one who’s got the problem, Frank’s the one who’s confusing him. And yeah, he’s standing at the shelves, all the way over by the alcove, like that’s where he’s been the whole time.

               Frank puts his gun away. “Up and around,” he says, marching over to where Red stands.

               He’s wearing black: long-sleeved shirt and pants and, Jesus, even boots to match. Only thing that stands out on him is the cut of a white t-shirt peeking out at his collar. “Better every day,” Red says, not really believing it.

               “You tasting shit again?”  
  
               “Yeah.”

               Frank picks up on that dismissive tone right away, but hell no. Kid wanted to play, now they’re gonna play, and not on his terms neither. “Neti pot worked.”

               More dismissal. Red even tries to get away as he responds, “Yeah.”

               He limps to a chair sitting outside of his corner in the basement. The strain the kid’s under: Frank wonders if it’s an act trying to put him off the scent of having been chased around the basement, but Red’s not that good of a liar. ‘specially not now. Nah, more likely, Red’s feeling the burn from giving Frank the run around.

               Doesn’t help that he pulls his usual schtick of turning it all back around on Frank: “You expecting someone?” Red drops into the chair.

               “Yeah,” Frank says, “You.”

               “You haven’t said hello to me with a firearm for a long time.”  
  
               “Miss me?”

               “You missed me. Or would have, if you’d’ve taken that shot.”

               “You sensed all that.”  

               Red gives a slight nod, not wanting to admit it. Not wanting to give Frank that. Frank doesn’t let him get away. “What else you got?”

               “Getting around,” Red says simply.

               “Yeah, I’d say you are.”

               A smirk crosses Red’s face. Fades quick, but he doesn’t deny anything. Frank stays on him. “What else?” Heartbeats, heat signatures – Frank doesn’t mention them, but they’re the first things on his mind.

               “Dust and stone and bleach,” Red says. And though it kills him to admit it, “My left ear’s better.” Then, before Frank can gloat about the ear, “The trains. The vibrations. I can…I can make out the room. Get a sense of where people are, where the pillars are.”

               Just like that, Frank’s reappraising the kid’s clothes. Black shirt and pants could be a coincidence, something he grabbed off the shelf without knowing what colour he was wearing. Even the boots. Might be the only footwear Red had at his disposal. But Frank’s fallen for that before, written the kid off as recuperating when he’s getting himself ready for war.

               “New outfit,” Frank notes.

               “Needed a change,” Red says.

               Uh huh. “You look about ready to walk out of here.”

               Red shakes his head. Laughs a little, that small, sad laugh. “Nowhere to go, Frank.”

               “Not yet.”

               “No,” Red says.

               Frank notices he doesn’t say, “Not ever.”

* * *

               The change in Red is almost night and day. He’s got that chip on his shoulder still: doesn’t want to talk about God, doesn’t want to talk about his “Job was a pussy” sermon, not without throwing it back in Frank’s face about how they’re in agreement on that point. But he’s moving around, minding his pleases and thank you-s with Father and Maggie. Even Frank gets some politesse, and he thought for sure he was going to be the target of Red’s shitty attitude for the duration of the kid’s recovery.

               They have coffee with Father, and Red doesn’t throw a fit, doesn’t dig in his heels like a toddler or make with the sarcasm like a sullen teenager. He’s enjoying showing off too much. Walking around on his own two feet, barely using the cane. Able to find his way to a chair without needing direction. Takes one sniff of the coffee and smirks at Father: “New beans.”

               Lantom shrugs. “If you say so. The bags all look the same to me.”  
               Red’s barely listening but not out of tetchiness this time. He’s lost in the latte. First cup of coffee he’s really had since Midtown Circle went down, and he savours every second of it with the senses he’s regained.

               Father hands Frank a cup. No latte for him: just straight black coffee, and yeah, the brew does smell a bit different. Fucking kid. “Would’ve washed your face out a lot sooner ‘I knew that was all it would take.”

               “Not all it takes,” Lantom says, “But you’re getting there. This is remarkable, Matthew.”

               Red pauses in the midst of his first sip, a testament to how serious he is when he says, “Don’t say miraculous.”  
  
               “I wasn’t going to. Nothing miraculous about a neti pot.” Lantom lets the kid settle back with his drink before commenting, “That a neti pot was all it took though…”  
  
               Frank takes a sip of his own coffee to shield his smirk. Guess he ain’t the only one happy to see Red’s got his fire back.

               Red takes the comment in stride. “If the only miracle is that I’m not dead, I’d say you’ve set the bar low for God Almighty.”

               “Midland Circle isn’t a low bar,” Lantom challenges him in a tone that sounds conversational. They’re two men having coffee, not priest and parishioner in the midst of a theological debate. Makes it easier for him to switch gears, avoid an out-and-out fight. Frank isn’t the only one who remembers last time they had coffee. “I am glad to see you up and around.”  
  
               “Thank you.” Red shuffles in his seat, basking in the steam from his coffee. “It’s good to be up and around.”

               Frank finishes off his coffee with one final flourish, his stomach tossing around inside him. Can’t figure out why neither. It’s good. Pain in the ass as he fucking is, the kid being up and around is _good_.

               His eyes flit to the floor and lock on the boots Red’s wearing though, and they stay there.

* * *

               Red amps everything up from there.

               Frank comes to the basement and finds a makeshift punching bag. Cinder blocks shoulder-width apart. Smell of sweat clings to everything. The cane is nowhere to be seen.

               Getting stalked is a normal occurrence, and fuck, like everything else Red does, it escalates too. Starts with Red sneaking around behind his back. Turns into Red popping up behind him and speaking directly into his ear. Finally becomes Red taunting him with little taps, rushes of breath, typical ninja bullshit that’s gonna culminate – Frank just fucking knows it – with the little shit tackling him into the wall.

               He doesn’t need to ask Maggie about Red’s appetite. He gets the rundown from her without prompting. The usual stuff, the stuff he knows, that Red is a bottomless pit when he gets going. Weeks in a bed stripped him down to basically nothing, and now he’s starting to fill that black shirt and those cargo pants. Starting to look like the Devil again.

               “What is it?”

               Frank blinks. Comes back to himself. Almost asks her what’s what, but thinks better of it. “Nothing,” he tells her, walking away. He isn’t more than a few steps before he says, “You’re gonna need more groceries.”

               He doesn’t go out that night. He picks a vantage point overlooking Red’s basement door and hunkers down for a stakeout. He’s got a rifle with him, some tranqs and some rounds, but he doesn’t get himself set up. Got one part of his brain screaming at him that he should, and, yeah, he probably should. No stopping stupid once it gets going, and Red is going right now. But another part of him…shit, another part of him wants to see what happens.

               It’s stupid. If Maggie or Lantom were here with him, they’d tell him so. Fuck, Frank’s telling himself so. Letting this happen - _fuck_. He can sit here with his gun and his tranqs and the idea that he’ll stop it before it goes too far, but it’s Red, fucking Red. Back in his black pyjamas, this time with a bum leg and a messed-up back and no hearing in his one ear. He’s beating a homemade punching bag during the day, for fuck’s sake. Sneaking up on Frank in a basement and thinking it’s the same as sticking the landing after a fall from a multi-story building.

               Frank puts a fist down on the latch of his rifle case. The Devil was always going to come back. Always. He knew it. The kid’s a pain in the ass. He knows that too. Being here, on this rooftop, staring down at a door for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen to hobble outside, looking for a fight: this was inevitable. Frank fucking called it. And there ain’t no use in getting pissed off about an inevitability.

               So why is he pissed? Red being back on his feet again, Red teaching himself how to fight again. Frank ought to be fucking ecstatic. But he’s pissed and he’s antsy, and swear to the God that Red no longer believes in, Frank is going to put a dart in the kid ‘he tries to walk out that door.

               Frank flips open the case. Sets up the rifle on the edge of the rooftop, loads a dart, and stares at the door. His heartbeat goes soft and quiet in his chest. His anger seems far away. Got a job to do, and he’s doing it. Only hope Red isn’t planning on doing his tonight.

* * *

               Red doesn’t come out that night. And that pisses Frank off too. All the baiting and switching. Getting stalked in the basement only to have Red appear across the room. Fuck. Frank gets a few hours of sleep just after dawn, waking to a cell phone with three missed calls, all from the church.

               He doesn’t bother calling back. He cleans himself up and walks over there, through the front door this time. Church has a couple parishioners, but confession’s not for another hour, so Father’s free. He’s holding court with Maggie at the top of the basement stairs. Below, Frank can hear the sounds of fists hitting the punching bag. Red, at it again, giving the bag one hell of a workout.

               They’re too close. The way Maggie and Lantom have their heads hunched together, the fact that they didn’t leave a voicemail, it all screams secret meeting. But there’s the kid, down a couple of stairs, one ear back to working condition. Him swinging punches be damned. Whatever they have to say is covert enough that Maggie and Lantom are whispering. They should be as far away from the basement as possible.

               Lantom seems to get that. He doesn’t wait for Frank to come to them; he goes up to Frank, gesturing for Maggie to follow. And the look on her face – fuck, she’s got her own Devil face on. Hard line of her lines, defiance in her eyes. Maggie’s ready to fight. For what, Frank gets the sense that he doesn’t want to know. The sound of Red swinging punches, of his ragged breathing and pained groans, they follow Frank as he makes his way up the stairs.

               Maggie hears them too. She actually casts a glance over her shoulder. Frank can’t see the look she sends Red, but he recognizes that slow gait, the way her head lowers as if in prayer. Regret and devotion. Church is good for that, but Maggie’s got her own reasons for feeling the way she does, and Frank bets money they all go back to Jack Murdock.

               St. Agnes’s kitchen gives them some privacy, enough that Red won’t be able to hear at any rate. Frank glances between Lantom and Maggie, trying to figure out who’s gonna go first. She’s got the idea. Wouldn’t be standing there so stone-faced if she didn’t. But maybe she figures it’ll sound better coming from Lantom.

               “Maggie has been speaking to Matthew,” Lantom begins, but that’s all he’s gonna say on the subject. “Maggie?” he prompts her.

               Maggie unfolds her arms from her chest, and while they dangle at her sides, while her posture softens, she isn’t any less formidable. “You know Matthew’s been training,” she says. “His condition has markedly improved.”

               “What does he want?” Frank asks. Whatever it is, the answer’s gonna be no. Matthew wants to go outside? No. Matthew wants to parkour across some rooftops? No. Matthew wants to get thrown off a building? NO. But there’s value in knowing where the kid’s head’s at, how ridiculous the request is before denying it. Gives Frank a better idea about how to deal with the next stage of Red’s recovery.

               “He wants to box someone,” Maggie says.

               Frank doesn’t hesitate. He’s got the answer lined up on his tongue and it’s the right one: “No.”

               “I agree,” Lantom says, right before his eyes flit back to Sister. “But Maggie makes a good point.”  
  
               “What? That you like having him around here? That you miss when he was stuck in bed? Nah, he ain’t…you can’t let him box. He’s not ready for a fight.”

               “An argument I posed as well,” Lantom says.

               “And one I agree with,” Maggie replies curtly, “But you both know that this is the best you’ve seen him in weeks. This is what’s getting him out of bed every day. Who knows? This could get him out of St. Matthew’s.”  
  
               “This could get him back in the infirmary,” Frank says. “This could put him in an actual hospital. You put some idiot in the ring with him…fuck, you put him in the God damn ring, and he throws his back or twists his leg, he’s right back where he started. Maybe permanently.”

               “Or maybe he’s fine.” Lantom shrugs. “Maybe this is what Matthew needs to return to life.”  
  
               The bullet in Frank’s skull is practically vibrating. His jaw’s clenched almost too tight to talk. “Maybe this is what does him in.”

               Maggie’s arms are back across her chest, and she’s looking at him with that same face from the stairwell. “Do you think he can do this?”

               How many fucking times does he have to say it? How loudly? Frank can’t believe he has to spell this out for them: “No.”

               “Do you think he’s going to give us a choice?” Lantom asks. Fuck, Frank’s got them both looking at him now. Lantom, at least, glances over to Maggie too, sharing the burden of his scrutiny. “Matthew wants a fight. If we don’t give him one, he may go looking for one on his own.”

               Frank glares daggers at the floor rather than see if either of them is looking in his direction. He scrubs the bullet in his head silent, along with the memories of sitting out on the roof waiting for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen to make an appearance.

               “At least he’s asking for permission…” Lantom says.

               “Who would fight him?” Frank asks. His guts are tying themselves up in knots. Adrenaline’s surging through him. _Geared up_. He’s geared up from the question, working through the possibilities. He tosses a look between Maggie and Lantom that’s worse than what they gave to him. “You two know any boxers? Who you gonna get?”  
  
               “Plenty of parishioners box.”  
  
               Frank shakes his head. “No way. Not letting some random parishioner come in here and wave their fists around. Got one idiot going into the ring already. We don’t need two.”

               “Do you box?” Maggie asks.

               “Maggie,” Lantom says.

               She doesn’t back down, doesn’t look away. She keeps her eyes on Frank.

               “No,” Frank says. The bullet inside him kicks up dust. That geared up feeling intensifies.

               Maggie doesn’t let up. “No, you don’t box?”

               “You know God damn well that’s not what I meant.” And just in case there’s any confusion, “No, I won’t do it.”  
  
               “You don’t want some random parishioner going into the ring-“  
  
               “I don’t want anybody going into the ring.”

               “You know how to box, how to fight. You know Matthew.”  
  
               “Yeah, I know him. I’ve fought him before. He tell you about that, Father? In confession?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. Lantom would never break his vows. But Frank doesn’t want idealism clouding his decision. Back to Maggie, “You put me in the ring with him, he’s gonna know if I’m pulling punches. And he’s gonna do something stupid and hurt himself or put me in the position where I have to do it for him.”

               “We don’t have to let it get that far,” Maggie says.

               “Just who do you think you’re dealing with? Huh? Who? You’re worried about him walking out of here and looking for a fight on his own, you don’t give him one. But you’re sure you’ll stop him before a fight goes too far? Really?”

               “Won’t you?”

               Frank clamps his jaw so tight he thinks his teeth might shatter in his mouth and _thank God_ , thank God for that. Anything to get the ringing out of his ears and the buzzing out of his head and the ice running through his veins. “I am. Right now. You don’t put him in the ring, not with anybody.”  
  
               “And when he goes looking for his own ring?”  
  
               “I won’t let him!”

               Maggie turns back to Lantom. “I say we let him do this.”

               “Jesus fucking-“

               “He isn’t going to ask again.”

               “This is bullshit.”

               “There must be an amateur boxer looking for something other than Hail Mary-s as penance.”

               Frank storms forward, laying hands on the back of a chair and very nearly pitching it through the wall. “You’re not doing this.”  
  
               Lantom isn’t looking at him anymore. “It doesn’t seem like we have much of a choice.”

               “Matthew won’t give us one,” Maggie says.

               “And I don’t think there’s anybody in this room who can dispute that.”   

               The chair scrapes satisfyingly against the tile as Frank pushes himself away from it. “You’re not doing it.”  
  
               “Going into the ring with him? No.”

               Fuck, every time Frank comes here, every time he sees these two, he sees more of why Red is as difficult and obnoxious as he is.

               “I’ll find somebody,” Lantom tells Maggie. He goes to leave the kitchen for the church. For confession, where some amateur middle-weight boxer will come looking for absolution and get thrown into the ring with the still-limping Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

               And maybe it’ll go well, but fuck, it’s Red, so it probably won’t. Some asshole will get their hands on him. His hearing’ll cut out. He’ll twist his hip and his back and then try again, always fucking trying, always fucking fighting…

               “I’ll do it,” Frank says.

               Lantom and Maggie share a brief glance before looking back to him. Hard to tell if this was the plan all along, but it doesn’t matter. “Frank,” Lantom starts to say.

               “I’ll do it,” Frank says again. He puts his hands into fists a couple times to loose the chill from his shoulders, quell the insects under his skin. His heart crashes in his ears.

               Fuck, he’s gonna do it.

               “I’ll go tell Matthew,” Maggie says, walking out of the room.

* * *

Happy reading!


	18. Till I Collapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> …and I did it! Posted in two weeks!
> 
> Having said this, the next chapter may be a little more delayed because I have a reporting period coming up at work, lol. Thank you so much for your patience, Readers. 
> 
> I can’t stop emphasizing this, because I feel self-conscious, posting this chapter by chapter, that the characters’ motivations aren’t always clear because of the narration. Neither Matt nor Frank are reliable narrators, but I try, with every new installment, to clarify their intentions. 
> 
> Lots of the dialogue in this chapter is from season 3. With elaborations consistent with this story, of course.   
> Readers, dear Readers, please enjoy!

* * *

“You're coming with me, feel it or not  
You're gonna fear it like I showed you the spirit of God lives in us”

~Eminem feat. Nate Dogg, “Till I Collapse”

* * *

               Should be different, this morning, but the day flows the same as all the others: Matt wakes up, works out, cleans up, eats. Puts himself through paces in the basement. Listens to the low hum of footsteps upstairs, the rumble from the confessionals. He almost thinks it might not happen until Maggie brings him a clean pair of hand wraps.

               She disappears before Matt can say anything, returning only when it’s time. She doesn’t have to tell him that Frank’s shown up, doesn’t have to walk him through how this is going to happen. Matt starts wrapping his hands, allowing the movements to guide him into a meditative calm. He lets himself be back at Fogwell’s, lets himself be in a space where he’s always been, a ring that he’s claimed as his own, a ring passed down by his father. His only inheritance is a fight. What’s coming to him is his birthright.

               The calm frees up words that have been a long time coming. “Thank you,” Matt tells Maggie. She’s hauling a basin of water towards their makeshift ring, and he talks more to distract himself from what her precautions might mean, what her expectations are. “Thank you for making this happen.”

               “Hands should be used for God’s work,” she says, less in response to him than in regards to what he’s doing.

               “Oh, yeah? That’s why he made me this way?” Matt asks.

               “No,” Maggie replies coolly, “That’s why he made boxing.”

               Matt finishes up with the wraps. Sounds like something Dad would say. He doesn’t know how to tell that to Maggie though. Never was comfortable mentioning Dad in this place. Kids who told stories about their parents in St. Agnes got shut up pretty quickly by others, by kids who were worse off, who didn’t remember or who wanted to forget. _So what? He’s dead_ seems, in Matt’s mind, to be the perfect motto for St. Agnes’s crest.

               The sound of Frank coming down the stairs tugs Matt out of his reverie. Lantom’s in front, but Matt’s only got ears for those boots, for that strain of a duffel strap over a shoulder. That heady smell of cheap soap and church coffee.

               “Father,” Matt says by way of greeting. He puts some extra sweetness in his voice when he says, “Frank.”  

               His only response is the sound of the duffel hitting the floor. It’s a perfect substitute for Frank’s heartbeat, a staccato beat of disappointment and exasperation and _let’s get this over with_ coming in loud and clear through the basement.

               “Matthew,” Lantom says in return. “You’re sure about this?”   
               “I am. Is he?” Matt makes his voice sweet again. “Are you, Frank?”

               The small kick to the duffel that Matt hears is better than any flare of Frank’s heartbeat. “Wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.”

               Matt smirks, satisfied. “No, you wouldn’t be.”   
  
               “Save it for the ring, Matthew,” Maggie says.

               There’s so much he’s saving for the ring though.

               Lantom’s speaking in low tones. Matt doesn’t bother trying to hear the words. He knows he can’t, for starters, but he also doesn’t care. Frank’s a big boy. He could have turned the match down if he wanted, but he probably very much wanted to do this. So here he is. And whatever pep talk Lantom’s giving doesn’t make Frank’s movements any less severe. The way he whips off his shirt, how taut the wraps on his hands and the laces on his gloves get, how he marches to the centre of what’s serving as their ring but no further.

               Honestly, Matt’s glad for it. Lobbing punches at some parishioner cashing in penance with Lantom pales in comparison to hopping back into the ring with Frank. He doesn’t have to worry about pulling punches, knows exactly how fast he has to be, how tough he has to be, in order to win.

               “Gloves,” Matt says.

               “Helmet first,” Maggie tells him.

               “No.”

               “Don’t be an idiot.”

               “No, you don’t understand: for this to work, I have to feel and hear everything.” He’s already working with a dead zone on his right, a dead zone that Frank is going to use to his advantage. Putting a helmet on will mess up his already fragile equilibrium. He’ll lose the pillars and the walls, misjudge distance and depth. He needs to feel Frank’s body heat. Needs every scuff of Frank’s feet on the floor, his fists breaking through the air, his puffs of breath and his groans of pain. Matt needs it all.

               Maggie obliges him with the gloves, and Matt springs out of his corner into the ring where Frank is standing. He puts out his fists, and Frank’s meet his. There’s no pause, no hesitation. Nothing spoken. Frank taps Matt’s gloves on top, then he taps to the bottom, and then Matt’s back, on his toes, fists up and in front of him.

               Frank seems to move in slow motion. Effect of the adrenaline on perception, probably: Matt gets his heartrate under control, putting himself back in that headspace of this being a spar at Fogwell’s. But he can’t make himself believe it, not really. He knows Frank, knows fighting with Frank, on an almost cellular level. He knows this stance, these formalities – a ring, gloves – that’s not them. Frank must be feeling it too, the way he puts off taking a swing, how he moves on flat feet, taking his sweet time.

               It’s a trick. Has to be: Matt focuses on that dead space to the right, the area in his perception where Frank diffuses into smoke and dust, and he damn near takes a punch from the left for the trouble.

               He puts his fists up, unmoored and unnerved. By Frank not saying anything, by the absence of Frank’s pulse. The fact that Frank started coming from the left when he knows damn well Matt’s at a disadvantage from the right. Frank wants to take it easy? Thinks his negative space routine is going to save him because Matt can’t follow where his heart goes?

               Well, maybe not with his ears, he can’t.

               Matt punches into the void that Frank leaves in his impression. Frank counters, again from the left, knocking his arm to the side. The slap of glove on Matt’s forearm snaps the Devil to attention. He lashes out with three quick jabs and lands blows to Frank’s chest, Frank’s neck, Frank’s face.

               Frank clocks him in the side of the head, knocking him back a step. Matt gets his hands in front of his face, waiting for the next blow, but none comes. Frank’s receded. Matt can’t follow with his ears, so he follows with his fist. The outer edge of his glove catches Frank’s cheek, but a rush of air along his arm and shoulder tells Matt that Frank’s moved behind him. He twists arounds, hands up to his face, catching a blow before he bobs out of the way, comes up for another swing that knocks Frank to the side. He senses Frank’s retaliation coming at him because it’s on the left again. The glove cuts through the air, and Matt weaves, countering the blow with a few of his own.

               His last swing misses and leaves him in the open. Matt barely misses the next hit. Instinct takes over, and Matt goes to drop into a roll. His back and hip put a stop to that, and he’s left bobbing back, away from the fight.

               There isn’t enough of a break between blows for Matt to figure out if Frank let him get away. A flurry of punches follows. Matt gets in hits where he can, swinging his arm down on Frank’s head as the punches rain down on him. Jabbing at Frank’s sides, at his shoulders, the sides of his face. Frank’s fist comes flying towards Matt’s left and he dodges, almost diving into a roll, if not for his back spasming.

               He uses that, the pain. Channels it all into his next couple of swings even if it means Frank tags him a couple of times. Matt hears the dimness coming back into his left ear; he doesn’t care. He doesn’t need to hear when Frank’s this close, when they’ve got their hands on each other, their breath hammering at each other’s necks. They bob and weave their way through the row of pillars, trading off leading and following. The way they’ve done what feels like a thousand times before, what they’ve done every time they’ve met. Daredevil versus the Punisher.

               Matt counts the paces, and at the last possible moment, pulls himself out of the line of fire to bash Frank into the utility shelves. His arms already poised behind him for another swing when Lantom’s voice rings out through the basement, “Cut! Time!”

               Frank spits a mouthful of blood to the floor and stalks away. Matt loses him, this time to the haze of his left ear. Cut loose from his opponent, Matt reels. He’s back in the early days at St. Agnes again, trapped inside his own head. The only sign his eardrum still works is his heart hammering against it.

               He forces himself to walk, managing to miss the pillar on his way to Maggie, who runs a cloth against his face, brushing away at the new blood and the prospective bruises. “It’s really something,” she says, “To see it with my own eyes.”

               Matt nods at her, trying to bely the fear rising up inside him from how muffled her voice sounded.

               “What is it?” Maggie asks.

               He twists his head from her, searching for Frank. He’s got nothing beyond his own panicked pulse. Probably Frank’s plan from the start: take out his working ear in round one so that he can win round two.

               “Nothing,” Matt says. He shirks away from Maggie’s hands, disappointed when the motion isn’t enough to dislodge what feels like water over his eardrum.

               “Maybe we should stop.”   
  
               “No.” He raises an arm, twisting away from the pain in his spine towards where he knows Frank is waiting. “Ding, ding! Let’s go again!”

               He can only imagine what Frank’s heart is doing. The thought of Punisher bothered gets Matt’s fists back up where they belong just in time for Frank to be on him again. There’s no friendly tap of gloves for the second round, no hesitation. Frank’s on his toes, moving faster this time: Punisher fast. Fists coming at a furious pace from every angle, every direction. Matt couldn’t track them even if his ears were working. Instinct pulls himself into evasive manoeuvres, old tricks from the Devil days, but his back limits his mobility. He got his one tuck and roll this fight. He can’t flip. And he can’t stop thinking about that: how he’s got the Devil inside him and no way of letting it out.

               Fighting angry isn’t a terrible strategy. Matt puts all his focus into his arms, and he drives his fists through Frank’s defences. He lets the Devil manage his footwork, relying on muscle memory to power through the next few paces, to shift at the last second, to feign going for the left only to weave back and tag Frank from the right. He finds a rhythm outside the crash of his heartbeat in his left ear, lets the guide him back to nighttime on rooftops. To a cut of cloth across his face. To wrapped knuckles rapping heads.

               He’s almost got Frank on the stairs. Matt can tell by the sudden looseness in the air, the chill. He gathers strength from somewhere inside himself, who in the hell knows where, for what he thinks are going to be the last few blows before Lantom calls another round.

               And then Frank’s fist comes out of nowhere, tagging Matt in the face.

               Pain explodes through the right side of Matt’s skull, screaming through the emptiness of his ear. Filling up the silence so completely he can’t believe he ever stopped hearing out of that side in the first place. He doubles back, but the damage is done. The basement flickers out of awareness, lost in the static of his left ear and the scream of pain from the right.

               He susses Frank out somehow. Maybe it’s smell or maybe it’s body heat: both of those seem illogical given what his own body is doing. And it’s a clear sign he should stop. He should stop, he _should_ , but his brain grabs hold of the floor under his feet, the weight of the gloves on his hands, and Matt strides forward for another swing. Frank brushes his fist out of the way and even though Matt’s wide open, there’s no accompanying punch. Frank’s pulled it, then he pulls himself out of Matt’s range, away from the fight.

               The punch would have hurt less. Losing would hurt less. The sting of Frank drawing away from him cuts Matt straight to the core. He lets out a yell and throws himself in Frank’s direction, loosing a string of blows so fast and so brutal that one of them has to land.

               None of them do. He ends up fighting against Frank’s defences, and then takes a blow to the right through the same dead zone Matt knew it would come from, this time to his cheek.

               Matt recoils and goes back for more, but that void he’s been tracking with his fists is nothing but a still frame. A lingering phantom. The sensory equivalent of a retinal burn. Frank has already come around next to him – which side, Matt doesn’t know, not until Frank starts swinging. By then it’s too late. Matt can’t get his hands up fast enough to stop the blow to his chin, the one that knocks his off his feet.

               He doesn’t feel himself hitting the floor. He’s aware only of the pressure on the back of his head and the sudden rush of his thoughts spilling out of him across the floor. Muffled voices hover around him, saying his name, but it’s only Lantom and Maggie. They’re the only people he hears, the only people who are speaking to him. Frank’s vanished.  

               Matt means to chase after him, but he falls instead, out of the back of his head, through the floor, into darkness.

* * *

               Voices warble in Matt’s left ear – Maggie and Lantom. Matt can tell by the way they move, Maggie’s in sharp cuts and Lantom’s in low rumbles. Frank nowhere to be found, not even as Matt’s helped to his feet and walked, mostly dragged, to the bathroom.

               Water runs. Matt raises a hand sluggishly, his muscles as submerged as his hearing. Maggie catches him by the wrist and holds him for a moment before guiding him to the edge of the tub. She nudges him under the lukewarm spray. It should hurt, he should be shivering, but Matt isn’t feeling much. He’s gone numb. Concussion, probably. The world is held at arm’s length, and Matt gets what respite he can in his muffled headspace. Eventually, it’ll come back. All of it. The horror of it and the shame of it and the pain of it, and Matt will have to contend against himself, and he’d much rather be here, not feeling or thinking. Aware of the world but comfortably removed from it.

               He gets dried off and dressed somehow. Maybe Maggie helps him, maybe he does it himself. Matt doesn’t pay attention. He lets his feet follow where they’re led, sits in the direction that he’s pushed. There’s the familiar sting of sutures in his right cheek, and then his fingers are wrapped around an ice pack and held overtop.  

               How much time passes, Matt doesn’t know. He holds the position long enough for the condensation on the outside of the ice pack to run down his hand and forearm, for the contents to warm. He lowers his arm and takes stock: back in his little corner, the hearing in his left ear marginally recovered. Pain in his head and in his chest, shame rising inside him like a wave: he wants Frank to come back and hit him in the head again. Give him back that numbness, maybe make it permanent this time.

               His arms are shaky. Hunger gnaws at him, but the thought of food makes Matt want to vomit. He folds his hands across his lap, adjusts and readjusts them, unable to find a position where he can relax. His skin is too tight. There’s a crawling sensation through his muscles, a chill all the way to his bones despite the long-sleeved shirts he’s wearing. Lingering effects of adrenaline, _wasted_ adrenaline. God, the wasted everything. Wasted time and wasted effort. Wasted life, really.

               Matt brings his hands up, folding his fingers together as if about to pray, but that position doesn’t hold. His bones refuse. They’re swollen and aching and hurting as much as the rest of them, so Matt keeps moving, unable to quit even now that the fight’s very much over and he very much lost.

               “You should see the other guy,” Maggie says.

               The peace offering stabs the same way Frank pulling himself from the fight did. Matt turns his head away from her to hide the wince of pain on his face.

               Maggie steps into his corner. She plays with the light, probably turning it on. Must be nighttime now, but Matt’s sense of time is skewed by his inability to hear. “Frank –“   
  
               “I don’t-“ Matt takes a breath, softening his tone, “Don’t.” He doesn’t want to hear or talk or anything about Frank.

               For once, Maggie doesn’t push. She just walks over to the bed, sits down next to him. “For what it’s worth, you were incredible.”

               Her hands drift up past his head, bringing a thin cord of leather over his scalp, trailing down his face. Matt catches the small crucifix charm as it passes his lips. “Sister, I-“

               “Did your head spin around?” Maggie finishes pulling the necklace down to his neck. “Then wear it for me.”

               She didn’t have to do that. She doesn’t have to do any of this, Matt realizes with a renewed swell of shame. He feels his eyes burn and a lump form in his throat, and he doesn’t want to cry there, not when he asked for a fight, not when he asked to be moved to the basement, not when he asked to come here and make himself _her_ problem. She should have called the ambulance weeks ago, but here she is, putting a cross around his neck and asking him to wear it for her. Like she forgives him.

               Matt puts one of his knuckles against his teeth and presses until he isn’t about to cry anymore. Still, when he speaks, his voice catches on the sob bubbling up in his throat. “You’ve been very kind to me.”   
  
               Maggie hums. “I have, haven’t I?”

               He almost laughs.  

               “And patient,” Maggie adds dryly, “Very, very patient.”

               At that, Maggie does laugh, and he has to catch his breath before his laughter turns into tears.

               She leans closer to him. “Don’t tell anyone: they’ll think I’ve gone soft.”   
  
               “No, I don’t…I don’t think there’s any danger of that,” Matt reassures her, his lips somehow finding their way into a smirk.

               Maggie’s hand appears on the side of his head. Same clinical air as always, but with a gentleness that Matt doesn’t even remember from when he was a kid. If it were anyone else sitting on the bed with him, he’d call it pity, but Maggie doesn’t do pity. The way she tilts his head, it’s more respectful. Like she’s seen something today that she hasn’t seen from him before.

               “Let me look at you,” she says.

               Matt makes a point of pointing his eyes away from her, the directness of her stare palpable through all the bruising and blood and shame throbbing around his skull. He’s aware of the sutures pulling near his hair line. A fresh little row of them, all evenly spaced. The way he used to try and get them for Dad.

               _Dad_. What would Dad say? Dad, who never wanted him to be a fighter. Dad, who never would have wanted him to be the Devil. Dad, who died telling him to always get back up.

               Matt’s teeth chatter as his lower jaw trembles. He tries to pull his hands into a fist together, but he can’t. He just can’t. “I used to sew up my dad,” he says, hoping that putting it into words will alleviate some of what he’s feeling, “And…” he needs to offer something to the old man, offer something for all the sacrifices that Maggie’s made, “And your stitches are perfect.”   
  
               “Plenty of practice round here,” Maggie replies.

               Her hand leaves his face and comes back to her lap with a sharpness that jars Matt. “Everything okay?” he asks.

               “Yeah. It’s fine.”

               It’s not fine, not really. Or maybe it is. Matt can’t read into Maggie’s tone, her dismissiveness. Certainly not when she puts the ice pack back in his hand and presses it to his stitches. “I have to get back upstairs.”

               Matt hangs his head as she goes, reminding himself that this is why he doesn’t talk about Dad in this place. This is why none of the St. Agnes kids talk about their parents. Orphans talking about dead parents makes people sad and uncomfortable, and that’s one more thing Maggie doesn’t deserve.

               She stops on her way out of the alcove. Turns. Hesitates. Matt pretends not to hear her, giving her the opportunity to walk away if she wants. It’s the least he can do. Maggie, however, comes out with it. “I don’t suppose you’d come upstairs to Mass with me tonight.”   
  
               The harsher response dies on Matt’s tongue. She’s been kind to him, and she’s being kind now, and he’s been a self-righteous, self-pitying asshole who had her orchestrate a fight for him just so he could lose. “Maybe next time,” he says.

               “I’ll hold you to that,” Maggie replies. She pats the shelves once more in farewell and leaves.

               Matt lowers the ice pack from his head the second she’s gone. He means to get off the bed, but there’s nowhere to go. Evening Mass means no visitors unless Frank stops by, and fuck, please don’t let Frank stop by. The only thing worse than Maggie being kind is Frank being…whatever Frank’s going to be after this. Smug, probably. Full of _I told you so-_ s and _sit your concussed ass back down_ and _this is what happens when you get a building dropped on you, Red_.

               He rises slowly, painfully. Muscles tight and uncooperative, wanting to lie back down and not get back up. But Matt pushes himself to his makeshift punching bag and forces his arms to take it down. He unpacks it, folding all the clothing and restocking the shelves. He’s finished and heading back to bed when Mass starts upstairs. He hears the people rising in the pews, and the choir starts to sing, and he’s right in the line of fire, right in the way of the stairs, but he doesn’t move.

               The singing hits him. Matt takes it the way he would a punch, shocked when it doesn’t hurt. The voices hit his skin and he doesn’t hear them so much as feel them flowing down the stairs. The harmonies bouncing at different frequencies, running over his bruised cheeks like a hand soothing away at his wounds, assuring him that there is a plan, that he knows what it is, that he must follow it. Now more than ever. Murdocks get knocked down, but they always get back up.

               Matt goes to the shelves, digging through the clothing he’s restocked. The old nun’s veil is a good fit over his head, coming down over his eyes the way his mask would. He ties a knot at the back to keep it from moving. Then he marches up the steps and out the door, into the night.

* * *

Happy reading!


	19. Kill the Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T he dust is still settling from Midland Circle when Frank returns to the city. 
> 
> Sequel to _It Takes a Village_. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> Warnings: This chapter contains references to suicide and a near death by suicide. 
> 
> I really want to leave this chapter to speak for itself. 
> 
> A note about the song choice: the French lyrics translate to, “And if I die before I wake into the light / If I could bend but never break and live a lie / And so we die before we wake / Goodbye.” 
> 
> Readers, dear Readers, I hope wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, you’re safe and you’re healthy and the people you love are too.

* * *

“Et si je pars avant mon heure dans la lumière  
Et si je sombre, et si j’ai peur sans mes prières  
Et si je pars avant mon heure  
Au revoir  
Come on let go -  
And kill the lights cause they’re blinding me  
I’ve been watching all the stars go by  
Devil takes my hand  
And now they’ve seen our blackest hearts  
Now they’ve seen the hole inside  
Come on take my hand”

~David Usher feat. Marie Mai, “Kill the Lights”

* * *

               Outside doesn’t feel like outside. Feels like more of the same to Matt. He runs his hands down the stonework of the church’s walls. The cold air doesn’t wake him. The muffled sound of the city drifting through his one good ear barely registers. He’s still in the basement, still underground. Still in the dark. There’s a dim flicker in the distance, vibrations or motions or a temperature shift, and Matt follows it until he remembers that’s the street and he’s in the mask.

               He finds a dumpster and hops up. The motion is slow. His muscles are shaky. That hunger gnawing away at his insides has him struggling to swing his legs up, but he gets there, stands. Tells himself he’s getting his bearings while the burn in his back and hip subside, while his head stops spinning. That flicker is becoming a dull roar, and there’s more now. Not just a pinprick at the far end of a long tunnel, but a rift right through the sky, an arc above his head, as if the heaven itself is peeling itself open and inviting Matt inside.

               Matt feels for handholds. He listens for braces. When that fails, he shuts himself right down, letting his feet and hands carry him where they will. His body knows where he needs to go even as his head struggles to remember what it means to focus. There are no choral singers. Lantom’s voice doesn’t permeate the brickwork. But Matt hears the rumble of parishioners settling into their pews. First reading, Matt suspects, and suddenly he’s clinging to the rooftop’s edge and swinging himself up.

               He’s shaking. Excitement or adrenaline or overexertion: probably all three, but he doesn’t stop, not as he scrambles up the shingles. The choir radiates through his hands, up his arms, straight into his chest, and the echo inside him is so loud he almost feels full again. He reaches the peak of the roof and walks the narrow line straight to the edge.

               The cross catches him. Matt wraps himself around it, again telling himself it’s an opportunity to get his bearings when in reality, he doesn’t think his legs will go another step. They certainly won’t hold if he decides to take a leap now into the night. But the sound up there is so fresh and clear. He can’t hear the choir, only the city. His city.

               Matt tucks his face behind the cross, biting back tears from the twist of pain and relief. His back spasms and his chest is too damn heavy, too damn tight. He’s glad for the mask covering his eyes. When he draws his face from the cross it’s cold and wet on his cheeks. He’s been inside for so long, and being inside felt right. Coming out here felt right, too, but there’s a swell of damnation cresting inside of him. Shame from having fought for so long to, what? Hide? Fail? Waste away?

               He draws himself into a crouch position and gets out of his own headspace. He’s here, and he isn’t forgiven, not by himself, so he listens. Gets a sense of the traffic flow, the pedestrians. The fizzle of electricity running to streetlamps and stoplights. No sirens or screams.

               Maybe he’s too late. Maybe the city doesn’t need him anymore. Maybe that’s what the choir called him to see: that he withered away in the church basement while the world found a way without him.

               He tracks with his left ear, searching for the familiar sounds of struggle. A few horns honk in the distance. People laugh on their way down the street. A vehicle screeches to a halt. Matt perks up, wandering away from the cross towards it. There are raised voices. A woman shouts for her father, and then the sounds of impact crash into Matt’s skull.

               There is no easy way off the church roof. Matt barely manages to stop himself from launching into the alleyway below. His back and hip twinge at the last moment, and he drops down on the roof, skidding down the shingles, comes to a dangling halt on the rooftop’s edge. He’s stick there for what feels like an eternity, his ear fixed on the sound of the woman begging, the rest of his senses searching for a handhold. Eventually, Matt just lets himself go, giving himself over to the same instinct that got him onto the roof. He tosses himself between handholds, not even paying attention to what, and hits the ground so hard that he limps on his way into the fight.

               He launches himself into the fray, barely taking the time to check his surroundings. Thankfully, the street’s quiet. Thankfully, it’s just them: him, the two guys, the woman and her father. It occurs to Matt, as he lands his first punch, that there’s a truck blocking the view of at least one half of the block. Anybody looking out their window on the other side will see a black shadow in a fight with two men.

               And it’s a fight. Bitter and brutal and exactly what Matt is looking for. None of Frank’s silence or his pulling punches. These two guys come at him. Phrases that used to be standard in Matt’s life – “Who the hell are you?” and “Kick his ass!” – make it seem like Midland Circle never happened. These two idiots are chaotic when they come at him, but they do manage to give him hell.

               Matt pays them back in kind. He swings punches. He grabs one guy around the head and swings a kick at the other’s face. Pain rips up his side and down his leg, but then his feet make impact. A crowbar or a pipe – something metal and heavy – hits the ground. It’s worth it, hurting. Frees him up to do inflict some hurt of his own.

               “Get out of here,” he tells the woman, who is dragging her injured father to his feet. Matt swings back and misses his next blow from trying to make sure they get away.

               He takes the first hit to the face, then to the shoulders, finally to the forearms when he manages to block. He’s so busy getting hit that that he doesn’t notice the other guy disappearing, coming round behind him, and landing a blow to his back.

               Matt’s knee gives out, and he hits the pavement, missing the next punch but also losing all sense of the street around him. The pain is unbearable. His whole hip, his sciatic nerve, all of it: up in flames. He feels the Devil moving under his skin, hurling itself upward towards his mouth, trying to escape and failing. It comes out as a yell instead, straight up to the God that called him out here. To the voices that told him this is where he is supposed to be. To the young woman and her father, who are gone now, no thanks to the God that put them in this situation. That put Matt on his knee and won’t let him get up – _get up, Matty. Work to do. Get up, Matty_.

               Matt strains to put his foot underneath himself, but instead his other leg comes down. He hangs his head, hiding the shame twisting his face. The rage. Fuck, he believed. He believed her could, and he can, he fucking _can._ It’s in him to do this. He has to get up, get moving. Do something.

               An arm wraps around Matt’s neck and pulls tight. “The fuck is with the mask?” the guy asks his partner. “Who does this asshole think he is? Devil of Hell’s Kitchen?”

               Matt grabs the arm, punches at it, tries to get his leg under him. But the guy doesn’t budge, the arm doesn’t move. That’s the arm of God grabbing hold of him, and that should galvanize him. That should push him straight into a fight. But he already came when called once tonight. And the asshole is right: who the hell does Matt think he is, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen?

               Not anymore.  

               Metal scrapes against pavement. “No, not that,” the other says. “Here. I got him.”

               The arm loosens. Matt falls forward, catching himself before he hits the pavement. When he rises, the guy behind him is gone, and he’s alone, facing down the two of them. Listening to that pipe – definitely a pipe from the ringing sound it makes – slap against the palm of one man’s hand.

               Matt hangs his arms at his sides. Nearly drops his head except for the thought that this is coming, that his only choice is how quickly and effortlessly this happens. He was called to the street for a reason. He thought it was to save lives, and he has saved lives. A woman and her father are going to live tonight.

               The footsteps come to a halt, so close that Matt can feel the heat of breath across his face. He holds his hands at his sides, refusing to raise them. Because he knows why he’s here now, he knows. He’s been brought to the street in the hopes he will fight, but he isn’t going to do shit. He isn’t going to do anything. God wants him to work, God wants him to bleed, God wants him to suffer: fuck that. Fuck all that. Matt did that once. He died for that once.

               He grits his teeth. He fixes his knees on the ground so that he won’t crumble from the first blow. He braces himself for impact, tightening his neck muscles so his bone might snap after the first swing. The pipe rises high above his head. Matt closes his eyes. He closes his fists so tight his tendons nearly burst out of his skin. God wants him? Fine. God can come down here and fucking get him.

               A puffing sound echoes from a nearby rooftop. Metal hits skin with a squelching pop. The pipe hits the ground, and then so does a body, blood and brain and skull misting on the air towards Matt’s face. He can already hear the other guy running, but it’s no use. There’s another shot, another pop, and another body hits the ground.

               Matt falls back. He crawls until he’s back on his feet. His legs have gone numb, his fingers are cold. He isn’t sure if he’s pissed or he’s scared or what he is. He shoots a look up to the rooftop, waiting for the sounds he knows are there, but they never come. Not the heartbeat, not the boot falls. Not even the sounds of a rifle being packed up. Frank, the asshole, standing there as silent as he did during the fight, as Matt huffs and heaves and tries to rip himself out of his own too-weak skin, a Devil trapped inside a mangled meat suit. Two dead men on the street with him. He didn’t hear their heartbeats before, but he hears their absence after as their blood cools on the pavement. He hears Frank’s absence loud and fucking clear.

* * *

               Windows are opening to the street. Sirens are on approach.

               Matt sprints towards the alley. He finds a fire escape and scales it, letting the agony in his back and hip chase him all the way up to the roof where he finds the scent of gun powder lingering on the air. No sign of Frank, though the asshole could be standing right in front of him and Matt wouldn’t know. Not without rushing towards the spot where the bullets were fired. He finally catches sound, but the acoustics on the rooftop reap havoc in Matt’s one working ear. Frank seems to be several rooftops over, then he occupies the whole of the rooftop at once, then he vanishes again, his footsteps sucked up into the nighttime sky.

               Matt runs harder than his leg and back allow. They strain and stretch, white hot under his skin, and the rest of him burns alongside them. His blood is alive and broiling in his veins. Every cell is weaponized, searching to rip and tear, to unleash whatever the fuck lives inside of him. Let it catch Frank and do unto Frank what Frank does unto the city. Let it hit the papers and stare Lantom in the face that yes, it is a miracle Midland City didn’t rip him apart, because only a miracle could stop what Matt has inside him.

               He slams against a rooftop ledge so hard he nearly pitches into the street below. There’s nowhere to jump to, nowhere to turn. Not for him or for Frank, who’s hauling a weapon. Matt whips around, searching. The pain reaches his chest and grabs hold of his lungs, so his next breath draws his shoulders down painfully into his ribs. He turns his moan into a growl, heaving through his next few breaths so he isn’t collapsing before Frank’s eyes. Frank should see what he’s saved by putting those two men down.

               “FRANK!”

               Getting his breathing under control, Matt hears nothing, smells nothing. If Frank is there, he isn’t talking. Not to gloat or to berate or to lecture. Matt slams a fist against the brickwork for his own foolishness, expecting that Frank’s about to come out of the dark and give him hell only for nothing to happen. Not fucking fair, none of it is, but especially not this: how Frank can see him, all of him, but Matt doesn’t get a single scrap. Matt gets stuck alone in the dark.

               He plants his heels against the ledge, and he lets that motion carry him. His back spasms; his hip screams. He stumbles for real, the centre of his balance slipping until he actually is dangling over the street. Until he’s past the point where grabbing the ledge could help him and there’s nothing else for him to hold onto.

               Sure enough, out of the darkness comes the heavy footfalls of Frank’s bootsteps. The iron grip of Frank’s fist into the chest of his shirt. Being tugged suddenly out of God’s hands into Frank’s hands and set right on his feet once again.

               Matt doesn’t waste any time: he punches Frank in the fucking face.

               Frank still hasn’t let go of his shirt, so Matt can’t get away when Frank punches him back. He also can’t drag them both off the roof together despite his best efforts.

               Instead, Matt gets shoved to the ground, away from the ledge. He lands on all fours to the sound of Frank spitting out a mouthful of blood, and he runs right back for another shot.

               Frank dodges the blows and catches Matt’s arms. As if that’ll stop him: Matt braces his arms against his torso and ploughs forward, driving Frank back, over the street. A few more inches, Frank’ll be in the street. Fall from this height will bust his legs, maybe his spine. Hole him up in a church for a couple of weeks. No more shots from the rooftops. No more getting in Matt’s way.

               He stays in Matt’s way now. Holding his ground despite Matt pushing and pushing. Frank’s toe scrapes against the rooftop like he’s losing his ground. But aside for _standing there_ , Frank isn’t doing anything. He’s letting Matt push him just like he let Matt call the shots in the basement. Matt wants him to leave, Frank’ll leave. Matt wants him to fight, Frank’ll fight. The only thing Frank won’t seem to do is let him die.

               Matt roars at him. Fucking asshole, fucking Frank. Standing there and pulling punches. Matt tears away from him, another yell dying in his mouth as Frank’s feet land on solid ground.

               He hurts. He hurts so fucking much. These long ranges of pain running through him, burning pain and aching pain and throbbing pain. Who the hell does he think he is, they ask, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen? Matt shakes his head and tries to get away from the sound of their skepticism, their amusement. But there’s nowhere to go. He runs, Frank’ll follow. He stays, Frank’ll lecture. He finds someone else to bash a pipe into his head, Frank’ll lay them dead in the street.

               There’s no way out.

               _We’re going to die down here._   
  
               Can’t hear shit, but her voice rings in Matt’s head loud and clear. He feels her on the ledge behind him.

               Matt sighs with relief. His shoulders sag. Arms hang at his sides. Tears collect on the inside of his mask.

               “This is what living feels like.”   
  
               He turns around to meet her.

               Frank hits him square in the face.

               Everything goes black.  

* * *

Happy reading!!

              

 


	20. Quit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> I thought this chapter would take me a lot longer, because I just adopted a puppy! And he is lovely, but he means that my attention is all over the place! Nevertheless, this chapter came together, and I’m very happy to share it. 
> 
> Readers, dear Readers, I hope you enjoy!

* * *

“And you say that I’m the devil you know and I don’t disagree  
No, I don’t see the harm  
They say, “You crazy, just leave him. He’ll suffocate you…  
But I’m under your spell  
‘Cuz when you call my head starts to roll, I always want more  
It’s my heaven, my hell”

~Cashmere Cat feat. Ariana Grande, “Quit”

* * *

               Knocking the kid out at the end of the boxing match stays with Frank, but he doesn’t have a single regret about cleaning Red’s clock on the fucking roof. Frank’ll do it again, the kid wants to go off and find another fight he can’t win or start spurting off any bullshit from under Midland Circle.

               _This is what living feels like_ – Jesus. Getting his skull smashed in by a fucking pipe, that what living feels like too? Guess Red’s metrics have been messed up for a while given he also thought a collapsing building was what living felt like.

               Frank hauls the kid back to the church and gets him on the bed. Red’s black and bloody. Fucking nun’s habit wrapped around his face like a mask. Frank takes that shit off and starts checking for injuries. Bruises are gonna layer bruises with the boxing match, the guys with the pipe, and Frank’s final blow. Long as the kid’s thick skull is doing more than keeping him from getting a fucking clue, he’ll be fine. Well, he’ll be as good as he usually is.

               The back and hip were looking pretty shitty on the roof. They’re swollen. Not much to be done about that except put ‘em on ice and hope the kid’s out long enough for that to take effect.

               Fuck, if he’s out long enough. Frank’s putting money on Red not being out the night. On him waking up and causing shit.

               Fuck.

               Frank drops onto the edge of the bed, drops his face into his hand. The other hand lands on the kid’s forearm. His fingers wrap around the wiry muscle and Frank, he turns away. Can’t take it. The sight of a person he knows too well, _too God damn well_ , but doesn’t recognize anymore. Kid’s a pain in the ass who gets in way over his head, sure, but he never would have thought about taking a knee when someone was coming at him with a pipe. Not when he didn’t - when he _couldn’t_ \- know there was someone having his back.

               Looking at the kid, Frank has a hard time seeing it. Has a hard time looking, if he’s being honest. Red’s always sporting blood and bruises and some kind of kicked puppy expression, and after Midtown Circle, all that stands out more. Blood and bruises are all that’s left. Hard to look at somebody who isn’t there anymore. Who walks the same, talks the same, but isn’t the same as the person who went away.

               “You were supposed to stay here,” Frank says. That was the plan, why he went along with the whole hair-brained idea of boxing the kid in the first place. Give Red a fight so he doesn’t go looking for one. Can’t wait to tell Father and Maggie how well their plan worked out. Can’t wait to say it again, one more fucking time: _I told you so_.

               Frank releases Red’s forearm. He puts a loose fist on the kid’s forehead, followed by his neck, then brings his knuckles to rest on Red’s sternum, right over the kid’s still-beating heart. The rhythm runs through Frank, prompting his fingers to loosen, to unwrap and splay themselves over Red’s chest, letting the heart pound directly into his hand.

               He thinks Red’s girl is gonna show up in his head, and for a second, she does. Less words or actions than a feeling. Of standing his ground. Of laying down roots. Of taking everything she throws at him, everything Red throws at him, and refusing to move. Promised the kid that night with the ninjas, fucking forever ago now, “See you around,” and later, in that east side veterinary hospital, in the Bronx, on so many rooftops, in the midst of so many fights, “I got you, Red. I got you.”

               Frank drags his hand away, scrubbing at his head some. Got nothing is what he’s got. Holding onto the kid ain’t doing shit except letting the kid slip through his fingers, and if that isn’t what Elektra said. Frank might’ve told Maggie and Lantom so, but Elektra had the last word on who the Devil really is.

               He leaves Red laying on the bed, heading for the bathroom. Maggie’s left a basin and a towel from the fight. Frank runs the water warms, gets the bowl filled up and the towel soaking, and he heads back out to Red’s little corner of the world.

               Bed’s empty. A shadow bleeds into the space where the shelf meets the wall. Footsteps are audible on the stairs. Frank slams the basin onto the table and bolts around the corner, just in time to see the door fly open to the night.

               Fury grips him. Frank storms up the stairs and slams the door, hard enough for Red’s one working ear to hear it. Would lock the fucking thing too if he could. Frank is done. He’s _done_. Mission accomplished. He found the kid, found the kid’s psycho mentor and his zombie girlfriend, his Catholic pseudo-parents. He put his blood and sweat and bullets into keeping the dumbass Devil alive. His work is done. Father and Sister love lost causes so much, they can chase Red down. Watch some assholes bash his brains in and leave him bleeding out on the streets he loved so God damn much. Frank’s finished.

               He isn’t going after him. And to make that point clear, Frank charges down the stairs. He heads left instead of right, making to exit via the church. The light from the alcove barely reaches the pillars. Frank follows the faint light of St. Matthew’s hitting the landing of the staircase in front of him. He isn’t more than a few steps when it hits him: the realization first, followed by the Devil.

               It’s exactly what Frank’s been expecting at the exact moment he should have expected it: fucking Red launching himself out of the sky, slamming into Frank and bringing them both to the floor. Frank’s on the bottom, Red straddling his waist. Kid’s face is masked in blood and darkness, but the expression is unmistakeable. The sight of his lips pulled taut in a growl, his teeth gritted and bared, eyes narrow and furious. He slams his fists down so fast that Frank barely escapes the hit.

               Frank blocks the next few blows badly, unable to keep up with Red. Kid’s swinging faster than he did in the match, and bare-knuckled, he’s trying to do some real damage. Frank gets his hands on the kid’s wrists, but all that does is piss him off more, get him throwing punches at Frank’s chest instead.

               Frank grabs him by the shirt. Red swings for his damn face again, lets out a yell that the dumbasses on the street might mistake for the Devil, they didn’t know any better. Frank knows though. Knows and hates himself for seeing it, even more clearly in the dark than he did with Red on the bed. That this ain’t the Devil. This is some scared, beat-up kid looking for a way out.

               He jumped the wrong guy, that’s what he’s looking for.

               Red lets out another yell. Frank shuts his ass up by grabbing him by his bad hip, finally breaking Red’s mask of rage for a pained, silent scream.

               The kid comes back to himself, and even though the mask isn’t quite the same, he gets his fists raised above his head. Frank sits up under him, tightening his grip. Red yells; Frank yells. Their voices fill the space and bring time to a halt, Red’s arms falling forward in a final stroke while Frank digs his hand into the meat of Red’s injured hip harder and tighter. God’s own fucking hand could come down from the sky, and He would still have to pry Red out from Frank’s dead fucking fingers.

               Bright light stabs Frank in the face. A flurry of footsteps tumble down the steps, and just like that, Red’s gone. He’s off Frank entirely, his yell cut short and his fists flung to his sides and his legs flailing underneath him as he struggles to get to his feet. Maggie has him with one hand, pinching his neck or his ear, while her flashlight hangs in the other, blindingly bright against the stone floor.   

               Frank reaches for the kid. He tries to tell her, but Maggie isn’t having it. “Stand down, Frank,” she snaps. She marches Red towards the light of the alcove, muttering the whole way about how much work she’s put into him – into them both – to have them throw it all away now. She shoves Red into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. By then, Frank’s peeled himself most of the way off the floor. He gets onto his feet and staggers toward the bathroom.

               “No,” Maggie puts herself in his path, “Stand down, Frank. It’s over.”  
  
               “Not over,” Frank tells her. He’s finishing this the only way he knows how.

               Red gets the bathroom door open a crack. Maggie catches the handle and slams it again. “It’s not,” he says with a maniacal lilt in his voice. He struggles to catch his breath, and his next words smack with blood. “Come on, Maggie. Let him in.”  
  
               She rolls her eyes. “You’re lucky none of the children heard you. Primal screaming at the top of your lungs. Two idiots beating the hell out of each other in a church basement!”

               Frank points over her shoulder to the bathroom door. His head’s spinning. Words get lost in the torpor. He finds them again and they come out with the same bloody smack as Red’s. “I’m going in there.”  
  
               Maggie stands her ground: “You’re doing no such thing.”  
  
               “This doesn’t concern you, Maggie,” Red says from inside the bathroom.  
  
               “This absolutely concerns me. I’m harbouring felons! I’m stitching them up! Meanwhile, you two are hosting your own private boxing matches. Don’t even know why you asked permission, Matthew. We could have just left you two alone down here.”

               Frank points again at the bathroom door, the path forward so clear in his head. “I’m going in there.”

               Maggie stares him down. Frank doesn’t have it in him to roll his eyes. Nothing funny about this, not what he’s about to do. “Not throwing down in a bathroom. I’m standing down,” he tells her, “And I’m going in there.”  
  
               She purses her lips. Frank thinks he’s going to have to move her, but she steps out of the damn way.

               Kid’s still standing at the door when Frank enters the bathroom. He makes ready to keep at what they started, but Frank isn’t having it. No more of the kid’s bullshit. He blocks the blows he can. He dodges Maggie’s hand on his shoulder, keeps himself in the way in case the kid’s fist slips. And finally, fucking finally, Red sags, barely able to carry his own weight, and he uses his words.

               “What are you doing here?” he asks, defeated. “Is this your way of gloating? I get it, Frank: you won! You won and I lost!”

               “That’s what you got?” Frank says.

               “Yeah, I got it. You made your point.”  
  
               “Oh, yeah? I made my point? Fucking did I, Matthew? Because something tells me you still don’t get it. Something tells me that I leave, you’re gonna walk out of this basement, and you’re gonna go find some other fight that you can’t finish.”

               “I was finished. They had me.”  
  
               The words break Frank in the way fists and bullets never could. “I HAD YOU!” he roars. “I have had you every step of the way!”

               He brings his scarred hand up. Red senses it, goes to swing. Frank grabs him by the wrist. Almost breaks the damn thing, the way Red tries to fight him off. Frank hits a pressure point to loose the kid’s hand and puts the kid’s fingers to the scar tissue in his palm.  

               “You feel that, Red? You feel it?” Frank doesn’t get an answer beyond the kid’s sour expression. Good enough. “You know where I got it? Who gave it to me?”  
  
               The sour expression crumbles for an instant, exactly like it did in the fight. That scared kid comes back. Bites down on his bottom lip, terror filling his face.

               Maggie grabs Frank by the shoulder and pulls him, “That’s enough.”

               “No, it’s not.” Red tries to let go. Frank makes a fist around the kid’s fingers and holds him against the scar. Red steels himself, puts his Devil face back on; Frank rips the mask off his face with a rough whisper. “You know who gave this to me. Say it. Say her name.”  
  
               Red wrenches himself away. Frank grabs him again. Maggie’s gripped on his shoulder, but Frank doesn’t give. “You know. You know, so say it. Where have I been? What the fuck have I been doing, Red?”  
  
               “That’s enough!” Maggie says.

               She shouldn’t’ve said anything. Red takes her wanting them to stop as a challenge, so he keeps right on going. “Elektra,” he says, tightening his hands into fists. He pushes against Frank once, twice, unsteady but ready for the fight. “You found Elektra. You found Elektra, and you didn’t tell me!”  
  
               “Yeah.”

               Frank pulls himself out of Maggie’s grip as Red drives him into the wall. The consideration of whether Frank could stop him is irrelevant: Frank doesn’t stop him. He lets Red tire himself out with the yelling and the punching, lets that exhaustion and pain that’s gotta be killing him take him out of the fight. Once that happens, Frank pushes the kid, gets him sitting down on the toilet. His face is covered in tears or sweat or both, and the blood from his mouth trails down his neck in pink rivulets. His limbs are shaking so bad that Frank doesn’t let him go.

               “Where?” Red demands.

               “Doesn’t matter,” Frank says.

               “WHERE IS SHE!?”

               “She’s gone! She left! I was trying-“ The bullet in his skull won’t _shut up_ with the sound of her voice, her last words to him. Frank scrubs at his scalp hard enough to wear down the bone, let him reach inside and pull the minx out, do what he should have done in Montreal: put her here in the room to answer for this. “I tried to bring her back. I told her you were alive, I told to come back, and she…”  
  
               He could lie. Tell Red that she made things difficult, that he, Frank, did what was necessary. Red wouldn’t know. They could end this, nice and clean. Finally break whatever shit it is they’ve got between them.

               Fuck, though, breaking Red. Really breaking him. About _anything_ at this point. Doesn’t matter what Frank says, not after what happened in the street, but at least if she’s out there, maybe it’s something. Can’t fight Red into wanting to live. Can’t leave him alone. Can’t do shit, but maybe even the idea of her can.  

               “She’s sorry.”  
  
               “Stop, Frank.”  

               Frank stays the course. “She said she couldn’t come back. She couldn’t be the reason-“  
  
               Red rips himself out of Frank’s grasp. “STOP!”  

               Frank lets him go. He steps back. “She said she couldn’t watch you destroy yourself. She knew that’s what was coming.”  
  
               “For God’s sake, Frank!” Maggie says.

               “Said I should get the hell out too,” Frank says, ignoring her, “So I didn’t have to watch neither.”  

               Red’s tears and smirk are at odds with each other, and he doesn’t bother clearing either one. “So why didn’t you, Frank?” he asks.

               The menace is clear but poorly directed. Kid’s flailing, trying to get whatever swings he can before the bell. Frank barely feels the blow. “You know why,” he says. And he leaves it at that. Kid can say whatever he wants about how he doesn’t know, but he knows. Maggie knows, Lantom knows, Elektra knows. Everybody fucking knows.

               Red’s shoulders give a small, sad shake, the dying remnants of a sob he won’t let out. “Did everybody know? Did everybody know except for me?”  
  
               Maggie’s opening her mouth. Frank cuts her off. “No, nobody else knew.”  
  
               Another shake, another smirk. “I can’t tell if you’re lying or not.”

               “I’m not. She didn’t know.”

               “But you knew. You knew this whole time. You…” Red struggles to hold himself together. He’s coming apart in front of Frank: sadness rocking his shoulders, anger in his fists, a whole lot of emptiness and pain from the waist down. He draws himself together as best he can and he’s still loose at the seams. “You said if I wanted you to go, you’d go. I want you to go.”

               “Don’t prove her right, Red,” Frank says.

               “Get the hell out of here, Frank.”

               He casts a glance at Maggie and sees what he needs to see: her small nod that means she ain’t leaving, that she’ll clean up the blood. That the kid won’t leave the church again, not on her watch. And knowing the Sister like he does, there’s probably going to be a hot toddy on the church roof. An offer to listen even though Frank’s got nothing to say. He’s said it all.

               He leaves.

* * *

Happy Reading!


	21. Where Do We Go?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
> 
> Warnings: This chapter contains references to suicidal ideation. 
> 
> This chapter was fascinating (in retrospect). At the time, I was frustrated, because I couldn’t get the dialogue to sound right. And that’s when I realized that I was trying to fit the story to season 3 again instead of fitting season 3 to the story. There are lines of dialogue in the first section of this chapter that hearken to Maggie and Matt’s interaction in “Please,” but for the most part, this chapter represents the clearest departure from season 3 canon. For which I’m very excited, and I hope you are as well!
> 
> I’m also excited because, in a stroke of beautiful fate, I’m updating on the same day and time as my dear friend, [bluesyturtle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesyturtle/pseuds/bluesyturtle) <3
> 
> Readers, Dear Readers, thank you for your patience. I hope wherever you are, that you are safe and healthy and happy. Cheers!

* * *

“Where do we go? Oh  
When our prayers are answered  
Where do we go? Oh  
When our prayers are answered  
But the answer is no.”

~Lindsey Stirling feat. Carah Faye, “Where Do We Go?”

* * *

               Maggie is gentle with the stitches. Should make her easy to ignore, but Matt is acutely aware of her, how silent she is, how soft she is. He doesn’t want to drop his guard.

               He lays down the second she retreats, curling up on his side as best he can. He puts the alcove to his spine rather than Maggie, knowing the sun is coming. Ice eases some of the tension in his spine and neck to reveal that emptiness of his chest, blacker than ever. A vacancy from his breastbone to his spine. It isn’t even hungry anymore. It doesn’t ache. It just leave there, and Matt lives in it, and the sun can reach and reach. The light won’t cross the void inside him for centuries.

               Maggie returns. She puts a glass of water on the night table along with some Aspirin. Piteous tenderness for his thought. Matt doesn’t make a point of ignoring it or her for that matter. Let her stand there waiting for him to respond, inviting him to speak with that hallowed silence of hers. Cold takes down the swelling in his spine, but Matt carries the aches of Frank’s punches, of Frank’s confession, and he seethes under the weight of inflammation and absence.

               Maggie’s silence ain’t got nothing on that.

               She finally speaks. “Still hosting a pity party, hm?”

               Matt sits up at that, lets her think she hooked him into an argument, but all he ends up doing is turning over so his back is to her. Sunlight stings worse than Maggie’s rightful assessment of the situation.

               “You know I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got your stamina when it comes to bad attitudes: try and knock me down, I get right back up. Seen a lot of kids with situations worse than yours-“  
  
               “Go minister to them, then.”

               “I don’t have to: they’re all asleep in their beds. And they’ll wake in the morning ready to face the day. Well, maybe not ready, but facing it nonetheless.” She takes a few steps towards the bed. “So you can throw your self-pitying bullshit at me all day, Murdock, and I’ll still be standing right here.”  
  
               Matt tilts his head out of her eyeshot. He closes his eyes, counts his breaths, tries to go to sleep. “You’re going to be waiting a while.”

               Maggie sighs. “What pisses you off the most about tonight?”  
  
               _One, two, three, four_ – he means to hold his breath, but he can’t. The air leaves him in a rush and Maggie keeps on talking.

               “You went out, got in a fight, nearly got yourself killed. Instead you were saved by Frank Castle.” Maggie pauses wistfully. “Again.”

               “You skipped the part where he lied to me,” Matt says.

               “So it’s the lie that pisses you off. I see.”  
  
               Matt groans. “If I say, ‘Yes,’ will you go away?”  
  
               “Are you going to talk about it?”

               “Sounds like you have it all figured out.” Matt shoves his head into the pillow, trying to block out the sound to his left ear so it matches the right. He’s tired of hearing by half. Tired of being here by half. “Why don’t you ask Frank?”  
  
               “I’m asking you.”

               “You seem to like his version of events so much.”  
  
               “You asked Frank to leave and he left. Why care so much about what he has to say now?” Maggie doesn’t give him the chance to answer. “I remember: you don’t care. Neither of you care. He breaks out of prison, tracks down this elusive woman, and when he can’t bring her back to you-“

               “I don’t want to talk about this.”  
  
               “You don’t want to talk or there’s nothing to say?”

               The tactic won’t work on him. He invented that tactic, perfected it, catching bad guys in lies before the court, in back alleys, hanging off rooftops. For the city, for God: he’s such a fucking idiot.

               “Why did you become a nun?” Matt demands. He already knows the answer. It’s the same answer for every member of the clergy. But he needs Maggie to say it, to put it into words. Which she does, in exactly the words he needs.

               “I heard God’s call.”

               “And what did it sound like, God’s call?”

               Maggie doesn’t want to answer: either because of what she heard or because she didn’t really hear anything. She settles on a non-answer: “God speaks to everyone differently.”

               “How did he speak to you?” Matt demands.

               “Are you wondering if He’s speaking to you?”

               “I know He is.” St. Matthew’s overflowing with voices stretching up to a heaven they’ll never reach, drawing him out to a fight he was meant to lose. An audible version of the call that draws him to the rooftops every night, to love the city and the people more than he loves himself. More than he loves _her_. “How did He speak to you, Sister? Was it a chorus of angels? Was it…a burning bush? Was it many voices, speaking in tongues?”

               “It was screaming,” Maggie says, “Endless screaming.”  
  
               Matt hears that too, but it’s the Devil calling. “Do you still hear it?”  
  
               There’s a pause where Matt would normally yearn for a heartbeat, but he doesn’t care. He wants Maggie around long enough to prove his point and then go, back to the other children. Back to the church. Away from him.

               “Sometimes,” she admits at last, “But not so loudly anymore.”

               There it is: Matt grabs her confession with both hands and doesn’t let go. “So being a nun is what you were meant to do.”  
  
               “I believe that’s what God intended for me, yes,” Maggie says. “Do you believe that what happened last night was what God intended for you?”  
  
               “I heard a call. I followed it.”  
  
               He can hear her looking around, surveying the space where God’s call supposedly led him. “Brought you back here.”  
  
               “Frank brought me back here.”

               Maggie considers this. Comes to her own conclusion nonetheless. “God called you to fight and nearly gets you killed. If He wanted you dead, why didn’t you die under that building?”

               Matt scoffs. “When I survive, it’s a miracle. All part of God’s plan. But when a building comes down or a guy goes to bash my brains in, it’s my own stupidity. I’m just some freak in a mask, some little kid playing dress-up.”    
  
               “People are free to choose.”  
  
               “I made my choice last night. Frank Castle took it away from me. He’s been taking my choices away from me.”  
  
               “You wish he would have left you to die.” 

               The hollowness in Matt’s chest starts to burn. He sits up on bed, leaning against the headboard. Gives her that much, at least, just _please let this conversation be over_. She’s not getting it, and maybe she never will. “You ever been in love, Sister?”  
  
               “I haven’t always been a nun, Matthew.”

               He groans, rolls his eyes. “Is that a yes?”

               Maggie keeps him waiting. Then, “Yes.” She draws a breath, silently debating how much and how little to tell him, what words to use to best obscure the circumstances. Matt can’t put into words how much he doesn’t care. He’s relieved when all she says is, “It was a long time ago. When I was still a novitiate.”  

               “So you chose the church over love?”  
  
               “I chose my love of the church,” Maggie says.

               “You heard God’s call. The screaming.”

               She’s silent. Nodding, probably, or maybe not. Matt isn’t sure what he’s looking for or why he’s looking at all. What he wants isn’t in this basement. Who he wants isn’t going to miraculously appear after talking to Maggie. But she started this conversation; she can end it, and he isn’t going to let her end it with anything other than the truth. “I’ve been in love, and every time, every single time, God came calling. And I did my duty. I served His purpose, even as it tore me away from the people I care about or tore them away from me. I followed God’s call all the way to Midland Circle. And I wasn’t alone. She was there with me: Elektra was there with me. She was there with me.”

               But then she wasn’t. Maybe she left him in the dark or maybe she left him on the beach: either way, she left. And she was right to leave. Couldn’t bear to watch him get himself killed, and there Matt goes, following yet another cry to heaven, a scream in the night, the city in peril.

               He swallows the blame for Frank. Telling him really wouldn’t have made a difference. He’s hardwired for this. God calls and Matt comes running, and he’ll go running every single time.

               “Becoming the Devil is one hell of a way to answer God’s call,” Maggie notes.

               “Yeah, well,” Matt shrugs, “This is the way He made me.”  
  
               “There are other ways to serve.”  
  
               “Not much of a calling if that’s the case.”

               “I suppose,” Maggie says, “But don’t lose faith.”  
  
               “I haven’t lost faith.” 

               “Oh, right. You’ve seen God’s true face. You two finally understand each other,” she says sarcastically. “Yet you still followed His call last night.”

               Matt scowls. Yeah, he’s an idiot. He doesn’t need a reminder. “I won’t make that mistake again.” He settles back down on the bed, tucking his head deep into the pillow.

               “Was Frank being there a mistake too? Maybe he was following God’s call.”  
  
               “Try telling that to Frank.”

               “I wonder if I’ll get the chance.”  
  
               Matt springs up slightly, unable to get comfortable. The bed keeps jabbing at him. “Am I supposed to feel guilty about that?”  
  
               “I would hope you feel something.”  
  
               “I don’t. Not about that.”

               “Then what do you feel?”  
  
               “I don’t feel anything. Elektra was right to leave, and I should have cut Frank loose a long time ago.”  
  
               “Right. Trusting people, caring about people, that’s what makes you weak. Precisely what God calls us not to do.”  

               “Calls us to love and then rips us apart.” Matt closes his eyes, finished with the conversation. “I won’t be answering God’s calls anymore.”

               “Speaking from experience,” Maggie says, “It doesn’t mean God’ll stop calling.”

               Matt lets her have the last word. He doesn’t expect God to stop calling. He focuses on his breath knowing for certain that call or not, he won’t be listening. How can he? He’s only got the one working ear. The good Lord saw to that.

* * *

               Dawn breaks. Matt rises with the first wave of heat that touches his back. He heads straight for the shelves, digging through the clothing donations, eventually coming up with a jacket and hat. Sunglasses would be nice, but there isn’t a pair for scavenging. He’ll have to find them elsewhere.

               He leaves through the basement door, taking to the street with conviction more than confidence. Hands buried in his pockets, head slung low towards the pavement; his one good ear tracks pedestrians and traffic well enough for a block, but his focus wanes. He ducks into an alley before his radar sense goes to static. He mounts a fire escape and makes an unsteady path up to the roof.

               The sky opens around him. Sound filters upward at a more manageable level. Matt drifts around the rooftop ledge, taking his time to get his bearings. There’s a new vastness to the world, an openness he once dreaded that now he welcomes. He stretches his hearing block by block, pulling in more and more of the streets. Vertigo grips him; he pushes past it, gathering the whole world tightly against him, so much that he almost can’t feel the emptiness inside him. Until he feels like he could stretch out a hand and wherever she is, Elektra would be there.

               He’s about to, in fact, but he falters. Knowing she won’t be there, that she’d run if he found her, that leaving is what she does best and encouraging her to go is all he’s meant to do.

               The rooftop materializes around him, the city expanding far and away on all sides. Matt listens, smells, senses: wonders if Frank’s around to watch this, to stare at his idiocy through the scope of a rifle. Wonders what Frank’s doing if he isn’t, if he actually did what Matt asked him to do. Maybe he’s gone too, out there in the world like Elektra. As far away from the city as he can get.

               Good. Better they aren’t here, watching Matt get himself killed or whatever it is they think he’ll do. Keep them as far away as possible.

               He makes his way across the rooftops, taking his time. The cool air helps with the swelling, reducing the stinging in his cuts and bruises. By the time he reaches his own building, Matt’s moving freely, and he can hear, clear as day, that the apartment below him is empty.

               The loft door is unlocked. Matt peeks inside, wary that it may not be his space anymore. Smells different, smells fresh. Chemical scents from cleaners adorn every surface. But beneath that lingers the familiar scent of his own furniture, fabrics heavy with smells that vacuuming and Febreeze can’t hope to rid.

               Matt closes the loft door behind him. He makes his way slowly down the stairs into he living room, disoriented. The whole space his and yet not-his. Familiar yet not. He starts in the bedroom: glasses on the nightstand, alarm clock keeping time, bed made. Clothes still hang in the closets. Matt is so lost he nearly forgets the glasses, returning for them before progressing to the kitchen where the mail is stacked on the counter. The fridge is stocked with a few beers and takeout containers, recent additions by the smell of things.

               The only new addition is the fish tank, the occupant floating so lazily inside Matt almost can’t sense it hovering there. A single jar of fish food sits next to it. Matt lifts the lid and checks: the contents have barely been touched, but fish don’t eat a whole lot. There’s no telling how long it’s been here, or who moved the fish in, or why.

               He feeds the fish, just a little, listening to the ripples move across the top of the water. A little reminder of life in the water beneath him.

               Last stop comes at the hidden panel. The trunk behind the wall, Dad’s trunk, completely untouched. Matt tosses the prayer book out of the way. Shoves Dad’s robe aside before he really gets a chance to feel it. He grabs the sticks and the ropes, briefly considers the old black costume, but he leaves that. Leaves the armour too. Doesn’t need it. The helmet will block what little senses of his remain, and the rest of it won’t fit over his swollen, battered frame, not without hurting his hip and back.

               Footsteps on the stairs catch his attention, but Matt doesn’t change his pace. Nobody would be coming here, not this early in the morning. Even to feed a damn fish. He puts the trunk back the way he found it aside for the items he means to take. He’s fixing the wall into place when keys jangle outside his door. The knob rattles. Matt gets up the stairs and onto the roof as the door opens.  

               Foggy enters. Matt can tell by the gait. The way the coat and shoes don’t come off at the door. The way he moves through the space, familiar with its vacancy.

               “Hey, buddy,” Foggy says, knocking the wind clean out of Matt. Doesn’t matter that Foggy is below in another room. The way he speaks, he could be right there, soft and tired, relieved to see Matt. Instead, he’s talking to the fish.

               “Not hungry today?” Foggy closes the lid on the tank and mutters, almost too quiet for Matt to hear, “Me neither…” He wanders around into the kitchen, through the living room, the bedroom. Looking for more places to clean. Matt shakes his head, trying to get rid of the thought of Foggy on his hands and knees, designer shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, scrubbing at the floors and windows, at every surface in the apartment. Putting a fish in the apartment so that there’s someone to talk to besides himself.

               Inspection done, Foggy comes back to the living room. He drops onto the couch and he stays there, not making a sound. Matt knows that his cue to leave, but he doesn’t. He’s hanging there in Foggy’s silence, waiting for what’s coming. Knowing the blow is falling, that it’s coming straight for him, but unable to pull himself out of the way.

               Sure enough, a cry claws its way out of Foggy’s throat. He catches it back with a choked sob, one that devolves into shuddering, wet gasps for breath. Each one knocks against the door, and Matt takes them the way a bag takes a punch. His sole working eardrum capturing Foggy’s ragged weeping in the middle of his empty apartment.

               The sound of Foggy’s cell phone ringing can’t come fast enough. Foggy groans, curses. Matt releases a breath with relief, grateful for the break. He means to leave, but he needs to hear who’s on the other line, make sure Foggy’s alright.  

               “Hi, Karen,” Foggy says with mock cheer in his voice. He even forces a laugh. “No, I’m not at the apartment. I took a detour to work this morning. Wanted that fancy coffee from Tonello’s!” There’s a pause for Karen to speak. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll see you tonight. Dinner sounds…” he has to think about the word, “…great. Yeah, dinner sounds great. Okay. Bye, Karen.”

               He hangs up, stands up. Lingers for a moment in the living room silently, maybe crying some more and maybe not. Matt lingers too, refusing to breathe lest shatter the tenuous grip Foggy has holding himself together. He listens as the footsteps make one last sad circle of the apartment, the pause they take at the doorway of the bedroom, right before Foggy hightails it out the door, cursing under his breath.

               The weapons hang loosely in Matt’s hands. He tightens his grip to keep them from falling. They feel so light suddenly, meaningless. The tighter he holds them, the less real they seem, the less formidable, the more foolish. He shouldn’t have come back here. Nobody should come back here. Foggy definitely shouldn’t be here, tending to an empty apartment the way someone would a grave. Elektra was right; Frank was right, too, in the end. Get the hell out before Matt does. Can only hope Foggy gets the message and does the same.

               Matt drops the weapons. He shoves his hands into his pockets. He can’t offer the closure that Foggy deserves yet, but God damn it, he can try.

               He stalks off the rooftop and plunges into the city.

* * *

               Days pass in a blur of noise and thunder. Nights are much the same, the calls of God and siren and pedestrians on the fringes of Matt’s perception. Drowning them out is impossible when he pauses for rest, so as much as possible, he doesn’t rest. He wanders: over the rooftops, through the streets, pushing that feeling inside himself deep whenever Dad’s voice comes back to him about _work to do_.

               He makes his home in rooftop accesses, alleyways, abandoned shacks, derelict buildings. He fights when he has to, and only at a minimum. No fancy leaps or flips or tumbles. Matt uses parlour trick theatrics, the kind of shit Frank hates so very much, and those who choose fight instead of flight take a few courtesy hits that send them on their way. None of them stick around to finish things off. No use, Matt knows. He’s not worth the trouble.

               The days bleed into each other. Nights become indistinguishable. Matt sticks more to ground-level, slowly sinking back into the earth. He goes to Midland Circle and finds a new foundation being laid, and his disappointment, while great, doesn’t stop him from walking. Doesn’t stop him from breathing. Elektra is gone and Frank is gone and Foggy goes to cry in his empty fucking apartment while he stands on his own grave.

               He takes his time leaving, legs dead weight under him. The city fizzling in his left ear, eventually joining with the static and waves of an electronics store. Television crackle behind a barred window while speakers overhead pour sound into the street: “…awakened from his coma, the result of a brutal assault by the Punisher…”  
  
               Matt stops dead. Someone swears, nearly takes him down when they walk into him. He isn’t listening. He reaches a hand out to the window to collect the vibrations through the glass, needing to feel what comes next on a cellular level.

               He’s disappointed. But, damn it, he feels that disappointment with every word from the report. “Doctors state that only time will tell the full extent of the damage resulting from Mr. Fisk’s injuries. However, a source from the FBI claims that Fisk has been cooperating fully with authorities. More on that at-“

               Matt storms away from the window. The whole world is a mess to him. Streets are walls, walls are sky, people are everywhere. He pushes his way off the street, rushing down an alley so fast he clips a dumpster on his way past. He slams his back into the wall, throwing off the shitty hat and hood he’s been wearing, causing an ache to bloom in his hip and back. He twists around, thrusting his fists against the brick, that emptiness swelling up inside him and _God damn it why isn’t he in pieces_. He’s been letting himself rot and still his body holds together, and air burns into his lungs, and his father’s voice fills his head, Lantom’s voice fills his head, _God’s voice_ fills his head that there is work to do.

               He tears himself away from the wall, standing there in a channel of brick, sound filtering in from the ends of the people still going about their day. A city that has no idea what’s coming for it now that Fisk is awake.

               And it’s his fault. It’s his stupid fault that Fisk is alive.

               A sound emerges from Matt’s throat. He tries to stop it, but there it comes, that choked cry of a Devil straining against his skin. That same cry Foggy let out in his empty apartment. Desperation and pain and loss and something else, something Matt tried to do away with, something that drives him even now as he tries to leave everything and everyone behind.

               He shoots a look skyward in a curse. All those lives he saved when he was the Devil, even men like Fisk. Men who Frank told him weren’t worthy of saving. The blood he gave. The people he left behind. And they mean _nothing_. He walks by the one news report that speaks directly to the Devil inside him. The one news report that sets him ablaze and puts him on a path and will always put him on the path.

               Dad’s voice comes to him, and Matt doesn’t push it aside. _Work to do_. There is work to be done, but what God calls him to do, it only sets him up to be called and called again, to lose and lose again. To watch the people he loves turn their backs because they can’t bear the sight of an idiot getting himself killed.

               Matt fast tracks it across town. He ends up back on his apartment rooftop. The sticks and ropes are still there, crumpled up by the door to the rooftop access. He grabs them and tears off anew.

               He’ll answer the call. But God’s not gonna like how.  

* * *

Happy reading!

**Author's Note:**

> In the show, Matt requests Clinton Church, but I called it St. Matthew’s in _Village_ , so it’s called St. Matthew’s here for continuity.


End file.
